


Lincoln in the Snow

by Deannie



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 1995-06-24
Updated: 1995-06-24
Packaged: 2018-01-01 23:50:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 21,984
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1050052
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Deannie/pseuds/Deannie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Romances bloom as Mulder and Scully get paired with one of Mulder's old flames, whose sweet partner has some strange things in common with Mulder--including Scully's interest. But an old case from Mulder's Violent Crimes days could spell doom for them all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lincoln in the Snow

**Author's Note:**

> Originally published 24 June 1995

Sharon Raese sat at her desk, staring at twelve old men's heads. Just their heads. Nothing else was left to look at. She sighed.  _This case is so sick!_  she thought, stretching her back and rubbing a modicum of the tension from her neck. The act caused a number of men in the office to cast her an appreciative glance. Most of them had wives who would have killed them had they seen it.

Sharon was a looker. To put it mildly. At five feet, ten inches tall, her figure was not at all suited to the short-skirt-and-jacket uniform of a typical female FBI agent. She wore instead long, shapely dresses, (today's was blue) given a business-like veneer by a somber jacket. Her hair, long and black, Greek and curly, was today held back by a single barrette at the nape of her neck, allowing it to fall neatly to her hips. Her olive skin, trim yet full figure, and deep black eyes completed a vision that few of her male colleagues, single or married, could easily resist. The only thing that saved the situation from utter chaos was her complete lack of interest.

Not that Sharon didn't like men. No woman went to that kind of trouble with her hair, clothes, makeup, and attitude if she didn't want men to notice. It was just that, having been burned by a relationship with a fellow agent once, she was loath to put herself through it again. Not that she wasn't tempted, but one trip on that ride was enough.

She didn't realize how provocative she was being, just then, because she was simply too busy looking at these severed heads.  _Damn it!_  she thought,  _add another poor bastard to the list and it just adds confusion._

 

The case had been turned over to the FBI after five heads had been found in various public housing apartments throughout the Philadelphia area. Philly PD were stumped. There was no apparent connection among the victims---no non-apparent connection when Sharon and her partner, Brian, had dug deeper. They were all poor, of course, else they wouldn't have been in the public housing, but beyond that---nothing. Just poor old men who had had their heads cut off and their bodies stolen.  _Sick shit._

She glanced at the clock and groaned. "Come on, Bri," she said, throwing a suit jacket to the linebacker at the next desk, "Time to get our butts chewed off again."

Brian Callahan, six feet, five inches tall, seemingly half that wide, had been a football player in school, and as a violent crimes agent for the FBI, his bulk made it a little easier for him to convince suspects to tell what they knew. When he could find suspects. Unfortunately, they were pretty damn scarce in this investigation.

Callahan and Raese both knew Tallor was going to take them off the case. No question. They'd be lucky to get anything more exciting than a minor shoot-out at the local Seven-Eleven after this one.

 

They were both wrong. David Tallor, their short-waisted, short-sighted, short-tempered superior, just looked at them across his desk for a moment as they settled into the two chairs before him. In the three years he had been heading this division, he had shown himself to be reasonable, but strict, with his agents. He was like a school principal---the kind you didn't want to see.

"You're not getting very far on this case," he said, half a rebuke, half commiseration.

"No, sir," Brian replied, having little else to say.

"It's a baffling case, I admit. Too much for us." Tallor put down his pencil, pulled his glasses off. "I'm going to call in a thinker. Someone who knows how to get inside these psychos' heads. You'll work with him to come up with a better profile on our killer."

"Who?" Sharon asked, starting to get a cold feeling in the pit of her stomach.

"Fox Mulder. Skinner's dog."

Sharon's face glowed slightly red. "Sir, please... If we could just have a little more..." She petered out, staring at Callahan for help.

"Do you have a problem with Agent Mulder?" Tallor asked, rubbing the bridge of his nose tiredly.

She straightened up. "Yes, sir... um, I---"

He dropped his hand. "Then you're requesting off this case?"

Her face reddened more, this time with anger. "No, sir, I just---"

"Then you'll work with Mulder." He put his glasses back on. "Look Raese, I know he's a flake, but he's good at this. He'll probably catch some weird little clue that we overlooked, and we can have this case taken care of in a few days, without any more casualties." He picked up his pencil again, already half dismissing them. "He's odd, but he's not that bad."

Sharon rose, anger still brightening her face. "With all due respect, sir, you've never had to live with him."

She walked out the door, leaving Callahan to explain to a dumbfounded Tallor.

* * *

Fox Mulder shook his head irritably, crumpled the piece of paper in front of him, threw it toward the waste bin across the room, and looked up, startled, as the missile returned, hitting him soundly between the  
eyes. "Oh, sorry, Scully."

Dana Scully, fresh and neat in her dark blue short-skirt-and-jacket ensemble, smiled at her own shot, and turned to hang her overcoat on its hook, shivering as she adjusted to the inside temperature. It was twenty degrees outside, and the snow showed no signs of stopping.

"That's okay," she replied, watching him scribbling on another piece of paper. "Your devotion to paperwork this morning is admirable---astonishing, but admirable."

He shook his head. "Working out the spread for the Redskins game." She snorted. He looked up accusingly. "Where were you all morning?"

"Autopsy on that Crimins girl," she replied, tossing a file on his scribblings before proceeding to her own mound of paperwork. "Whoever did that was pretty sick. Kind of like the guy in that file."

Mulder picked it up, glanced quickly at the photos, and stopped as he reached the first page of notes. "Shit. Raese."

Scully looked up at him quizzically. "Decapitation of the elderly is racey?"

Mulder shook his head, pitching another wad of paper toward the bin. "Sharon  _Raese._  One of the principles on this case." He sighed. "She  _hates_  me."

Scully stood up, walked toward his desk. "Sharon Raese. I think I know her. Tall?" She swung her hips and lilted the next word. "Greek?"

He glared at her, hurt.  _Oh, Dana,_  she thought,  _you put your foot in it there._  She sobered and slid a hip onto his desk. "History?"

He sent his pencil to check on the condition of the papers he had set adrift on the floor, and kicked back in his chair. "We lived together for six months when I was in violent crimes."

She made a silent "o," then said, half-mocking, "Mulder, that's against company policy."

His face grew hard. "We didn't care a whole lot about company policy."

Scully had never seen him this bitter before. "So what happened?"

"I don't know," he said coldly. "She probably just thought I was too damn spooky." He slammed to his feet, startling her. "I'm going to lunch."

 

Mulder didn't eat lunch, didn't even think of it. What he thought of, as he walked along the park path, watching a very few people enjoying the snow, was the time that February when he and Sharon had gone to visit the Lincoln Memorial. In fifteen inches of snow.

 

They had taken a rare personal day from the bureau, and Mother Nature had seen fit to pick the night before to dump a record snowfall on the capital. She had woken him at eight thirty with breakfast in bed: Ham, eggs, bacon, toast, and pancakes. Sharon was a woman unafraid of clogged arteries.

"Come on, Fox. Hurry up so we can go."

"We're going?" he asked sleepily, draining half his cup of coffee at the first draught. "Where are we going?"

"To see Lincoln."

"I don't know," he said, biting into a piece of bacon. "We've only got the one day off, and Nebraska's a long drive."

"Fox!" she cried, hitting him playfully, requiring some complex acrobatics to keep him from spilling the rest of his coffee. "You promised me a month ago that we would go and see the Lincoln Memorial."

"You see it everyday. You know," he explained sleepily, finishing the bacon and starting for the pancakes, "he's that tall guy. Lives in a white mausoleum?" He looked out the window at the sizable mound of snow on the sill. "Besides, he's buried right now. We'll have to wait for the thaw."

"Well," she said, deftly relieving him of his half-finished meal. "I'm going, anyway. And if I get lost..."

"I'll be sure to call the Mounties." But he was already getting up, already heading for the shower. "I hear their dogs carry brandy. You could be the ice. It could be a party."

 

The day had been wonderful. They had driven over snow-clogged, half-plowed streets to DC, and spent the morning in the park, eventually getting to Lincoln. She had loved it, though he had seen it too often in his year with the bureau.

They had driven back to the apartment, curled up under a blanket, one thing leading to another leading to the bedroom. The love had been slow, comfortable, and they had spent the late afternoon dozing.

Rising to fix dinner, they had both discovered that they weren't hungry for food, and had returned to the bed.

Later, he had had the dream, and had awoken, as always, frightened and sad. She had held him, soothing him, calming him. Somehow the dream hadn't seemed as bad when she had been there, he'd been able to push it from his mind more quickly. At least in the beginning.

As the months went by, it had again become harder for him to release it when he woke. Her influence just wasn't enough to keep it at bay anymore. He'd been devastated, but not terribly surprised, when she had left him.

 

His afternoon went terribly. Skinner called him in to rail at him for his paperwork. Mulder literally had to bite his tongue to keep from pointing out that he  _had_  cracked the big case, and he  _had_  caught the serial killer, and if Skinner didn't like the way he filled out the forms, he could just...

It continued thus. By the time he finally returned home, he wanted nothing more than a cold beer and some sleep to wash the day out of his mind. He found, though, that he couldn't drink the beer, and he was so wound up, he knew he would never sleep. He sighed, pulled on a pair of sweats, and went for a run, trying to ignore the bitter cold of a DC snowstorm. He hoped that the run would relax him, but all it did was give him more time to think---about her, about them, and about how he could have been so neurotic as to screw the relationship all to Hell.

He came home with wet socks, the beginnings of a cold, and the surety that if he slept, the dream would be worse than ever. He sat on his couch and stared at the walls instead, but the thoughts that came to him were almost more painful than the dream.

He opened a drawer in his bureau, pulled out a videotape, and started it in the VCR, his mind still on her. The skin flick was wasted on him as he remembered that June.

 

 

She had told him that she wanted to get a place of her own. They had been living in his cramped apartment for six months now, and it was not that she didn't want to be with him, but two people in such close quarters were bound to get on each other's nerves, she had said.

He knew, though, that she didn't mean it that way. She meant that  _he_  was getting on  _her_  nerves. Not surprising. He knew himself to be obsessive, moody, sometimes unthinkingly cruel, greedy of other people's time, while ungiving of his own. He tried to back off, to be less abrasive, but it just made the relationship decay more quickly. He knew that his own actions had caused her to call it quits. She wanted to be free, or at least independent, and he could not give her the space she needed.

 

He switched off the VCR, staring at the prints on his wall, glowing vaguely in the moonlight. He would have to see her in the next couple of days. Research the case, work up a profile, and present it to her and Callahan. She would sit there, nervous, he would make a complete idiot of himself, and then she would leave.

Only he didn't want her to leave. He wanted to tell her that he was ready to take the relationship on whatever terms she wanted. He just wanted her.

He finally managed to sleep long enough for the dream to come, its images of Samantha's abduction so sharp and clear that he woke crying, and couldn't stop. He finally fell back asleep, and awoke more exhausted than before.

* * *

 

He had asked her to marry him after three months of living together. He had tried to be storybook perfect, she remembered, still with a smile for his bumbling attempts to overcome his natural romantic ineptitude. He had planned a wonderful, candlelit dinner: Pasta Parmigianino, red wine, the works.

She had been called to a crime scene five minutes into the dinner, and the food, work, and atmosphere had been wasted.

Apparently deciding that the direct approach would work better given their busy schedules, he had waited until she came home, letting her find him sitting quietly on the bed, reading Foucault.

"I'm sorry about dinner, Fox," she had said, truly repentant, though they had agreed early on that no apology would be necessary if work interfered with their lives. "You had something important to tell me, didn't you?"

He had played it more deadpan than she could have imagined. "Well, I  _was_  going to ask you to marry me, but, you know," his eye twinkled, "the mood's all wrong now."

She had laughed at first, thinking it was truly a joke, but he had looked her over with those wary eyes of his, and she realized that he was serious. She sat down on the bed, staring dumbly at him.

"Fox," she said finally, distressed, "we can't get married."

His face remained impassive. He was so damn hard to read sometimes. The youthfulness of his features marked him as a boy of eighteen, not a man more than a decade older. And that boy's mind was a locked room. "Why not?"

"Because," she said simply. She thought for a moment, then repeated sadly, "Because. Fox, I just can't marry you. I love you," she assured him, moving closer, not wanting to see that hurt in his eyes. "I just... It just isn't the right time."

He had said he understood, had tried to talk it through, make it somehow all right, but she knew she had turned a corner, and he wouldn't follow her around it. She was hurt, but not terribly surprised, when the relationship began to fade. He was still there, always present, but something had happened. There was some barrier now, that she knew she had had a large share in constructing.

After six months, she decided to move out. She tried to tell him that she just wanted a place that was hers. She tried to say that she wasn't going to stop loving him, that things would still be the same. But they weren't. Things weren't the same because she hadn't had the courage to admit to him that the thought of marriage, of a full-time commitment, scared the hell out of her. She was just too frightened, and it had cost her a life with a man who really loved her.

 

 _Damn,_  she thought, rising from her couch, shuffling toward the kitchen to make some chamomile tea.  _I have got to get some sleep. I'm going to drive myself crazy if I sit here thinking about this all night. It'll be fine. He'll call a meeting, we'll both be nervous as hell, act like idiots, he'll figure out the answer on the case, and I can leave._

She almost threw the kettle across the room. She didn't want to just leave. What she wanted was to tell him that she was wrong, that she was an idiot to say no, and that she wanted to marry him. She just didn't think he would give her the chance.

* * *

The next morning, Scully came in early to work, and was surprised to find Mulder already at his desk. "What are you doing here this early?"

He rose, walked to her desk, and threw down the file in his hand. "What was that head severed with?"

She looked at him, looked at the head, looked back. "A pop quiz, this early in the morning?"

He whirled away from her, grabbing the file as he went. "Damn it, Scully, don't get cute! I'll find someone else. Forget it."

"Mulder," she chided, in a voice calculated to stop him in his tracks. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to be 'cute.' Let me see it again."

He muttered an apology and tossed the photo back on her desk. The shot showed a close-up of the old man's neck and chin, focusing on the edge of the cut. "It's hard to say," she replied after a moment. "Maybe a kitchen knife. It wasn't serrated, but it must not have been anything as big as a butcher's cleaver." She pointed out the neck itself, the cross-section showing the windpipe and esophagus. "See, here, and here. Those pipes were hit several blows each. It must have taken a couple dozen blows to take the head completely off." She paused, wishing now that she had forgone breakfast.

She realized that he was just staring at it. "Mulder, are you all right?"

He nodded, distracted. "I just can't make head or tail of this damn case." He looked back at her, carefully avoiding her eyes. "I need to figure this out quickly."

"Why," she said quietly, figuring out now where his anxiety was coming from, "so that you can prevent another murder, or get away from Sharon Raese."

"That," he said coldly, in a voice she had never heard him use before, "was uncalled for. You are not my shrink."

"No," she said mildly. "I'm your partner. And your friend." She tried to catch his eyes. "What happened with you two? This sounds like more than a simple breakup."

He turned around, heading for the hallway. "This is none of your business, Scully." He deliberately did not slam the door on his way out.

 

Mulder stayed away from the office for most of the day. About two thirty in the afternoon, a knock came at the door. "Come in," Scully called, looking up to find a massive, blond, very handsome man dwarfing the entrance. "Can I help you?"

"Sorry," he said pleasantly, "I was looking for Spooky." He walked up, offering his hand. "Hi. I'm Brian Callahan. Spooky is looking into those serial murders in Philly for our team. You're Scully, right?"

She rose to shake his hand, disconcerted when her height barely reached his ribcage. "Dana. Have a seat. How's the case going?"

"Well I was hoping Spooky could tell me that."

She leaned forward slightly in her seat, frowning. "I'm sorry, but do you have to call him that?"

Brian smiled big, showing her an enormous, but not unattractive, set of teeth. "Bothers you, huh? That's okay, it bothers Mulder too." He got back to business. "Anyway, we've been down to see all the victims and all the crime scenes since we took the case, but we just can't figure it out.

"I mean, the coroner said it was probably a serrated edge of some sort, but it would have had to be---"

"You should have gotten a second opinion on that one," she interrupted. "Mulder showed me one of the victims this morning. That was a repeated straight cut if ever I saw one. Probably a small weapon---"

"Wielded by a small assailant," Mulder cut in from the doorway. He held a paper bag in one hand, placed it on Scully's desk in a gesture of truce. Inside she found a huge green salad, a piece of french bread, and a bottle of iced tea. "Sorry," he said simply. "Anyway, I didn't think with that Crimins case you would have taken the time to eat."

"Apology accepted," she said kindly, opening the salad and attacking it with an inadequate plastic fork. She had, indeed, not taken a lunch break, and was glad for the food, and, quite frankly, glad to be back in her mercurial partner's good graces. She wished, though, that he'd tell her more about what was going on between him and Raese, but she could see by the wariness in his eyes that he wasn't going to let her ask the question again. He just didn't trust her enough, and that hurt.

Her brain suddenly processed what he had said. "How do you know it was a small assailant?"

Mulder smiled mischievously, almost himself. "I found the killer."

Brian jumped to his feet. "Who? No wait, let me call Sharon down here." Mulder's face acquired a closed look. "Come on, Spooky. Tension or no tension, here, she's been busting her butt on this case for as long as I have, and she deserves to be here when you explain."

Mulder wanted to argue, but he saw the justice of it, and held his tongue. Scully thought she could see him start to sweat.

Sharon was downstairs in record time, looking radiant in a deep red dress with a black half coat over it. "Okay, so who is it?" Her voice betrayed no tension, other than the desire to know the answer. She had spent most of the night figuring out how to lure him back, and had decided on pure, basic courtesy as a fitting first step.

"Housekeeper, I think," Mulder replied, trying not to look at the way her hair was caught up by a single, silver chopstick, leaving her slender neck exposed. It didn't work. Self-torture was something he was good at.

Brian just stared at him. "Housekeeper."

"Gladys Perry, aged 86. She cleans house for a number of elderly male shut-ins all over Philadelphia, working through a company called ElderCare. The manager says she has a history of mental illness. Nothing serious, but she usually takes medication for it. She likes to complain about the lack of cleanliness of some of the men she helps out. The manager remembers three of the victims being mentioned repeatedly."

Sharon tried to engage his attention, tried to catch his eyes and hold them. She knew how to catch a man, and right now, she wanted Mulder to know she was after him. Once he got the message, he could either engage her, or run away. "Are you telling me that you think this old lady killed these guys, chopped off their heads, and disposed of the rest of the bodies elsewhere, because she didn't like cleaning up after them? Mulder, come on."

 _It's back to Mulder, now,_  he thought sadly.  _Oh well._  "What one thing did you specifically note in each site report, Brian?"

Brian's eyes widened. "The cleanliness of the place. Everything neat and tidy. Like the murder had never happened."

"Right," Mulder replied, turning to Scully. "How many times did you estimate that the victim's head had to be hit before it came off?"

"Two dozen, at least. More maybe."

"That would make one hell of a mess." Mulder smiled coldly. "Gladys Perry has an obsessive-compulsive disorder which manifests itself in an intolerance for mess. It’s why she started with ElderCare in the first place. It's like she wants to clean up the world."

"So what made her turn to killing instead of cleaning? And how could she possibly overcome a man to start taking his head off anyway?" Sharon was trying desperately to get him to just look at her. She almost didn't care about the case she'd been pulling her hair out over for the past month and a half. She just wanted him to  _look_  at her.

Mulder looked instead at Scully. He needed to have the doctor's confirmation on his hunch, but her face was also the farthest from Sharon's. "Six months ago, Gladys Perry had surgery for an aneurysm in the right frontal lobe of her brain."

Scully sat up straighter. "The aneurysm burst during the surgery?"

Mulder nodded. "Minor lesion in the frontal lobe."

"Any secondary ballooning?"

He smiled. "None detected in the hospital, but she never returned for the follow-up exam."

Brian shook his head. "Sorry?"

Scully looked up at him. "There's an area in the brain, called the amygdala. It's where the emotion center is located---maybe. Anyway, often, if an aneurysm bursts anywhere in the brain, no matter how quickly it’s repaired, a secondary ballooning can result." She sat back slightly, amazed at Mulder's logical bounds. "If the primary hemorrhage was in the right frontal lobe, it's very possible the secondary ballooning could be in the amygdala. She may not even be aware of the consequences of her actions."

"One aneurysm and she goes from clean freak to serial killer?" Sharon asked dully, finally deciding that he was not going to take the bait.

"I think so, yes." Mulder finally looked right at her, amazed by what he saw. From the moment she entered the room, she had been interested, polite, and relaxed, and he saw an openness in her manner that he had simply not expected to see. He had been sure she must hate him, given the way their relationship ended, but he didn't see that here.

It took him a second to recover. "Um, ... As to how she killed them, I'm willing to bet that if she left anything of the bodies behind, you would have found a gunshot in each one. Her husband was in World War II, and I'll lay odds he had a gun around somewhere."

"So where are the bodies?"

"I don't know everything," he replied smoothly, trying to read her face.

She smiled. "You're supposed to."

Brian smiled big again, not just because of the break in the case. He had been Sharon's partner since the beginning, and had always thought that she and Mulder made a good pair. It was good to see them talking again. "All right," he said, rubbing his massive hands together. "Spooky, you'll come down and do an on-site psych profile, yes?"

Mulder nodded, glancing back at Sharon, trying to gauge how far her openness extended.  _Dinner?_  "Sure."

"Wonderful," Brian said. "I'll just run up to Tallor and tell him we've got it cracked."

"We  _might_  have it cracked," Sharon corrected, again with a sly smile at Mulder, whose forehead wrinkled in consternation in response. "We don't know if he's right yet."

"Oh, he's right." Brian smiled at Scully. "Spooky always has that look in his eyes when he knows he's right."

"Annoying, isn't it?" she replied with a smile. Brian was a  _very_  handsome man.  _Too bad he's so damn tall._

Brian laughed as he walked out, then stuck his head back in the door. "Hey, Dana, come here a second."

Scully rose, gave Mulder a look, which he returned with an eyebrow. Brian was waiting just outside the door. He held up a finger, and ushered her farther down the hall.

 

"What?" she said finally.

Brian winked. "I wanted to give those two a couple of minutes alone." He smiled winningly. "I also wanted to find out if you had plans for dinner."

"Ah," she said, flashing a smile that made Brian blush. "A yenta on the take."

Brian just stared. "Excuse me?"

"Never mind," she laughed. "Yes, Brian, I'd love to have dinner with you." She took on a mock serious attitude. "But you have to promise to tell me what's going on with those two."

 

Mulder and Sharon stared at each other for a moment. He decided to start. "Look, Sharon..." That was all he could think of.

Sharon, on the other hand had thought of a number of things to say during  _her_  sleepless night. She went on the attack. "What are you doing for dinner tonight?"

Mulder just stared. He simply couldn't believe that she was standing there, radiant, before him, asking him seriously what he was doing for dinner. "I..." He said uncertainly.  _God, I hope this isn't a dream._

Sharon's resolve faltered slightly at his reaction. "Well, because I was going to Sky's, and I know how you love the place, and I thought, well..."  _shit_  she thought, looking at his unreadable face, still so young after the intervening years.  _I blew it._

He suddenly snapped out of it. She really seemed like she wanted to try again, and he was more than willing to go along. "I'd like that. A lot."

He looked at his hands. "Um, do you want to meet there, or ...?"  _That's right_  he thought,  _play it safe. Let her meet you there so she can pull a no-show when this momentary insanity passes._

He was dumbfounded when she shrugged. "No, why don't you pick me up at my place. I'm still living in the same apartment, if you can believe it."  _SHIT!_  she thought suddenly,  _way to bring up the most painful part of the separation, Sharon._

"Okay," he said, brightening slightly. "How about eight?"

She breathed a sigh of relief. "Eight sounds wonderful." She made for the door, noticed Scully and Brian talking animatedly just down the hall.  _Don't_ they _make an interesting couple?_  She turned back at the threshold. "Don't forget your dancing shoes."

Mulder just watched her go, dumbfounded.

 

"Anyway," Brian was saying sweetly as Sharon approached, "we'll talk more at dinner, okay? Seven thirty?" He repeated her address to make sure he got it right.

"Dinner already?" Sharon asked, when Scully had reentered Mulder's office, and she and Brian were safe in the elevator.

"Yes," he replied happily. "As a matter of fact, she's cooking. When's Spooky picking  _you_  up?"

She smiled in turn. "Eight."

"Good."

* * *

Sky's was a little club that looked out on the Potomac. When Mulder had first started with the bureau, he had loved to come here and just stand at the railing, beer in hand, watching the river. Also, the barmaids were unusually gorgeous.

He hadn't been back since he and Sharon had broken up. It had been their favorite place. She had even lured him onto the dance floor once. Only once, though. Mostly, they just sat and talked. He was glad to see that the place hadn't changed too much. He hoped it would bode well for the evening.

"So, how are things in DVC?" he asked. He didn't really care, but her answer gave him a reason to stare at her some more. She wore a low-cut burgundy gown, adorned by a matching velvet choker with a silver ankh hanging from it, that he recognized as his Valentine's Day present to her. Her hair was unbound, and fell in drifts over her back and shoulders.

"Same old same old," she replied, staring at his neck. He really had the most beautiful neck. She never got to see it as he insisted on wearing suits all the time, but tonight, hopefully because he was going out with her, hopefully because he remembered how she loved his neck, he wore a deep blue t-shirt and a dark blazer, with jeans. He looked almost civilian. "Brian, as always, is still trying to pick up every girl in the bureau." She leaned in confidentially, feeling like a sixteen-year-old who had just discovered the power of cleavage. "Between you and me, I think he has his eye on Dana next."

Mulder frowned.  _God,_  she thought in sudden panic,  _Maybe he has a thing for Dana._  She relaxed when he mused, "Do you think he could reach her lips?"

She laughed pleasantly. "Maybe he could just walk on his knees when they're together."

 

The evening was surprisingly relaxed. They had both expected something awkward and uncomfortable, but it was as if the last five years had never happened, and they were still lovers.

They were both a little surprised, then, when he dropped her at her apartment with a kiss, and she let him. They each needed to be sure this was going to work before taking  _that_  step again.

* * *

"You, my dear," Brian said, in his thickest fake-Irish accent, "Are by far the finest cook in the bureau."

Scully laughed as she walked from the kitchen, pouring another glass of wine and ushering Brian to the couch. "You've never been out with Nathan Coovers."

Brian affected shock. "You mean," he demanded dramatically, "I'm not your first bureau love?"

"No, Brian, and I'm not yours either," she said blandly. "Somehow we'll just have to live with it."

They sat quietly for a moment, before Brian turned to her. "'A yenta on the take?' What does that mean?"

She smiled. "A yenta is a Jewish grandmother who feels that every young person she sees should be partnered, and goes about finding a relationship for everyone she knows who's under thirty-five."

"But why 'on the take?'"

She sat back. "Well, you want to see Sharon and Mulder get together, but you're not above getting something for yourself while you're at it." She sipped her wine. "A yenta on the take."

"Oh," he replied, still a little perplexed. "So," he continued, returning to an earlier subject of the evening. "You like working with Mulder?" She had threatened bodily damage if he called her partner Spooky again.

"He's intense," she said noncommittally. She took another sip of wine.  _Better watch this wine, Dana. He'll have you in bed before you know it._  "Oh, I don't know. Yes. Yes, I like working with him." She put the glass down. "It's just fascinating to see someone so completely dedicated to one goal."

Brian finished his glass, filled it again. "Do you believe this whole thing about his sister and the abduction?"

 _That_  was a sore point. "I believe that he believes. I've seen some weird things since I started working with him." She giggled.  _No more wine for you, my girl._  "Not enough of them to believe in alien abduction, but..." she trailed off, uncertain.

"But Mulder is so convincing sometimes?"

She nodded soberly.

"Shar always said that. She'd tell me about something he had said, and when I laughed, she'd say, 'It sounded real when Fox said it.' " He sighed.

Scully turned to face him. "Do you love Sharon?"

Brian shrugged. "Everybody in DVC loves Sharon. She's gorgeous, graceful. Perfect." He drained the rest of his glass. "But I can't... I mean, you can't  _not_  love a woman you spend most of your waking life with. Six years with one partner, you're bound to develop something more than just simple friendship." He stared at his empty glass. "But love just doesn't compare with partnership in these situations."  
He smiled suddenly, his ambivalence about his partner forgotten. "How much do  _you_  love  _me_?"

She sat up straighter. "Why?"

"Because I have drunk far too much to drive home."

She stood, a deliberately bland look on her face. "I love you enough to get a blanket. The living room gets chilly at night."

"Oh, Dana," he moaned, slumping over to curl his huge bulk onto the couch, "I thought you loved me more than that."

She seemed to think about it for a moment. "Okay. The couch, a blanket---and breakfast." She covered him with a quilt from the linen closet, shut off the light, and went to bed.

* * *

Mulder was in an intolerably good mood the next morning. He sat at his desk, poring over Gladys Perry's psych file with an almost-smile on his face. Scully narrowed her eyes at him as she walked in the door. She decided it was time she had a little fun at his expense.

"Mulder?" she said, deceptively normal.

"Hmm?" he replied, still flipping through the file.

"Could you give me a ride home tonight?"

"Sure," he looked up. "Why, your car in the shop?"

"Actually," she said, silently congratulating herself for the setup, "Brian drove us in. It was silly to take two cars."

Mulder smirked. He was not going to let her get him on this. "I hope you used protection."

She feigned shock. "He slept on the couch, if you must know."

Mulder sighed, turning back to the file. "One more unlucky night for Callahan."

She pulled off her coat. "What's so unlucky? I only said he  _slept_  on the couch." She could feel Mulder's shocked eyes on her as she grabbed the Crimins file and headed upstairs.

* * *

The sun had finally come back out, leaving the streets wet and shiny as the snow disappeared. Sunday afternoon was almost warm, and it was Brian's turn to cook. Dana had insisted on it.

"I cooked," she said reasonably. "Just because you're a man, doesn't mean you should be able to shirk your duties."

He picked her up in his Ford Taurus, and drove out into the Virginia hills.

"Where are we going?" she asked. She had seen him for lunch two or three times since their first date  _God, Dana... You're_ dating _again!_  two weeks ago, but she was still a little leery. Her father had raised her as most military men raise their daughters---with a healthy distrust of the intentions of men.

"To my house."

"You live out here?" she shuddered at the thought of the commute.

"No," he smiled. "Not during the week. I have an apartment in town. This is the family house. I'm usually down here every weekend." He smiled again, stealing a glance at her as he wound along the country road. She wore a long blue dress that accented her shape perfectly, and made her hair seem even more fiery. "I thought it would be nice for you to get out of the city for a while."  
She closed her eyes appreciatively and smiled. "Thank you."

 

The "family house" was a huge sprawling complex, comprised of four individual buildings. Dana whistled low.

"My grandfather worked in imports," he explained simply.

"What did he import? Money?"

 

"Oh, my God" Dana said happily, pulling open her door even before the car came to a stop. "A '57 Chevy!"

She ran her hand lovingly across the grill of the only other car in the five-car garage. It was a brilliant red, and all the chrome was sparkling. A convertible. Perfect.

Brian stopped the Ford's engine and got out, watching her bemusedly. She liked good cars, and seemed to know one when she saw one. "I'm impressed."

She walked around to the driver's side, looking to him for permission before opening the door and peering inside. "Ahab loved old cars. He always wanted to buy one and fix it up." She sighed. "Never enough time," she glanced up at him and smiled slyly. "And never enough money."

He smiled back, enchanted. "Ahab?"

She sobered suddenly. "My father," she said quietly, then in a whisper he couldn't hear, "It used to be an in-joke."

He looked at her as she closed the door of the Chevy, careful not to slam it. "Is he dead?"

"No," she said, looking up at him, closing off the disappointment. "Just...away."

He reluctantly let her close up, feeling that he didn't know her well enough to ask her to trust him with this pain. He led her toward the main house.

"Now, Dana," he said in warning, as he led her through to the kitchen. "You must understand that I am an Irishman," he smiled at her incredulous look. "Okay---three generations removed, but the theory still holds. Irishmen, generally, know how to cook only three things: lamb, stew, and steak." He looked at her expectantly.

"Oh, lamb, I hope," she said.

His eyes closed in what she found to be a beautifully expressive way. "A true Celt, you are, Dana Scully," he said, again with his outrageous accent.

"Thank you." She smiled expertly with her Celtic eyes.

 

"So, John O'Donnell walks into the RAF refectory and grabs up these plates," Brian was explaining, holding a sturdy white china plate with the figures "g" and "v" ornately intertwined on its rim. "Well, of course, a lieutenant walks up to him and says,"--he put on a high brow English accent--"'I say, what do you think you're doing?'

"John O'Donnell looks at him--this little ten-year-old kid looks at this RAF lieutenant and says, 'I'm stealing yer bleeding plat!'" Brian started to laugh in response to her delightful chuckle. "'Ye've stolen me country, so I reckon I deserve sumthin!' And the best part is--- _They let him go!_ "

He took a sip of wine, setting the plate back in the display rack. "The English moved out of the Free State--The Republic of Ireland--a few weeks later, and left everything. Granddad said he didn't know a single kid who didn't have at least a couple of these plates in his house." He put his glass down and sat back. "I guess they saw it as a little piece of justice."

They sat in pleasant silence for a time, finishing the tender lamb and vegetables. When they had cleared the table, Dana wandered comfortably around the ground floor, while Brian brewed some tea. The house was a typical family house: pictures dating back generations, painted portraits of family patriarchs. One table, though, caught her attention.

It stood to one side of the library door. An old oak table, covered in faded Irish lace. On that lace stood four photographs in ornate silver frames, a bible, and, sprawled lovingly across the bible, an ancient olive wood rosary.

The photographs were arranged in a semi-circle. The two outside ones had that almost-black and white look of photos from the late forties or fifties--not sepia anymore, but not yet true black and white. One was of a man with a military haircut, who just had to be Brian's father. The other was a stunning woman whose hair, if it were color, would have been a deeper red than Dana's own.

The inner photos had that faded-color look of the sixties or seventies, and showed a boy of perhaps fifteen, with dark blond hair and Brian's eyes. Brian's brother, probably. It was the last picture that held her eye.

It was a young girl, perhaps seven; thin, her hair a faded red, paler than Dana's, her eyes a pleasant grey. She wore a dress like the one Dana remembered being very uncomfortable in when she went for her first communion. The girl's proud smile reminded her of Brian's.

Dana looked down at the bible. It was old, crumbly, smelling of ancient times. A family bible, probably full of family information: birth certificates, death certificates, that young girl's communion notice. She read the first lines on the page, and looked briefly up at the heading. The book of Job. She laid one tentative finger on the rosary, looking up as Brian approached, two cups in his hands. "Your family?"

He put the cups on the edge of the table, picking up the rosary and laying it gently in her hands. "It was." He picked up his own cup and took a sip. "My father James, mother Sarah, my big brother John, and this," he said, fingering the frame lovingly, "was my baby sister Mandy."

He looked sadly at Dana, who had replaced the rosary and was watching him. "They died in a car crash when she was eight." He handed her her teacup, watching her as he said quietly, "her Christian name was Samantha."

Dana's head snapped up from the sip she'd been about to take. "Mulder's sister..."

Brian smiled, genuinely, a twinkle in his eye. "Coincidence is what makes life fun sometimes," he said, his irrepressible good humor making it impossible for him to stay melancholy for long. He led her away to the sitting room.

"You should have seen Mulder's face when he saw that picture for the first time. Same build, same hair--if a different color..." he trailed off.

 _Same pain_  she finished for him.

* * *

The next few weeks saw a number of changes, according to the gossip mill at the FBI. Spooky Mulder had somehow managed to convince the uncatchable Sharon Raese to get back together with him. It set a number of men's teeth on edge, which Mulder probably would have loved, had he noticed.

Setting an almost equal number of men's teeth on edge, and annoying a great number of women as well, Scully and Brian also seemed to be making a go of it. While Brian had tried to woo a number of women in the building, there was still a fair amount of jealousy that he had chosen her for his latest conquest, especially as this looked to be more serious than his usual two or three week fling.

For the most part, Scully ignored the remarks, ranging from lewd questions of height logistics in bed to some very catty remarks about how she had lured him in in the first place. She felt though, that it was getting out of hand when she had lunch with a friend from Quantico one day.

 

"I hear you're going out with Brian Callahan." Her friend had said, innuendo dripping from her vocal chords.

"Does the entire world know about my love life?" Dana asked. "My God, I think I'd rather be celibate than deal with this gossip." She watched her friend smirk. "What? Come on, Sal. Can't I go out once in a while without people speculating?" She sipped her lemonade, stared at the ice cubes. "I  _used_  to have a life."

"People talk, Dana. You can't help that. Having Mulder as a partner doesn't help your case any. We all know what he's like."

"Lewd, crude, and unsubdued, as your little brother would say?" Dana asked.

Sal nodded, smiling. "Porno men are not helpful to have around if you want to keep your good-girl image."

Dana sighed. "I still have a 'good-girl' image?" she smiled wickedly. Sal was one of the few people who knew anything about Dana's private life. "Maybe Brian can change that."

"Not likely," her friend said, just to elicit the injured look. Sal laughed. "It's not that, Dana honey. It's just that he's so  _tall._ "

Dana rolled her eyes. "Don't remind me." She smiled. "He tried to pick me up to kiss me goodnight yesterday."

Sal was shocked. "You let him kiss you goodnight? Dana, are you crazy?"

"What?"

"I would have asked him to stay."

Dana just smiled knowingly.

* * *

Sharon knocked on the door and stuck her head in. Dana was filing, as usual. All she ever seemed to do was paperwork anymore.

"Hi, Dana," Sharon said, stepping all the way into the room. "Where's Fox?"

Dana turned around, glad of an excuse to forsake the drudgery. "He's off interviewing a woman who claims she was abducted on Capitol Hill."

Sharon smiled, her eyes full of gossip. "Do you think she really was?"

"It's possible," Dana said. "After all, there are still Kennedys in Congress."

Sharon chuckled pleasantly. Dana bet that Mulder just loved that chuckle. He didn't strike her as the giggler type. Sharon looked briefly at the poster behind Mulder's desk, seeming to wonder what she should do. She turned to the smaller woman before her. "Do you have plans for lunch?"

Dana looked up, a little confused.  _Why would she want to go out to lunch with me?_  "Actually, I don't think I can go to lunch today. We're six days behind on the paperwork. You may not have noticed, but paperwork is  _not_  Mulder's strong suit."

"Oh," Sharon said, subdued. "I just..." She sat down. "I just wanted to ask you something about Fox."

 _Uh-oh._  "Well, ask it. He's not going to be back for a while."

"Do you think he's... better?"

Dana smiled bemusedly. "Better than what?"

"Better than he was?" Sharon leaned forward, her hand playing with the pencil on the desk before her. "He seems like there's something different now. Like he's--I don't know--more mature."

That almost set Dana laughing. "I can't say, honestly Sharon, that I have ever found him to be very mature."

Sharon dropped the pencil. "I know. That was one of the reasons I was so afraid to marry him."

Dana was shocked. "You were going to get married?"

"He asked me, yeah," Sharon replied, nodding her head sadly. "But I just couldn't do it. He scared me, you know? Maybe it was just getting married that scared me." She shrugged. "I don't know. It's weird."

She paused for a moment. "It's just that... I  _want_  that now... Marriage, a house, kids... I would like to think that Fox could do that, but I'm just afraid he can't. I don't want this to go far enough for him to ask me again, because I know I'll just chicken out again and hurt him." She looked up at Dana, and the old sorrow, the recognition of her guilt in the destruction of the relationship were there in her eyes. "I just can't do that to him again, you know?"

Dana didn't know what to say.

Sharon sat for a moment, then straightened her shoulders, smiling faintly. "Bri and I had a long talk about you yesterday."

Dana blushed. "Really?"

Sharon smiled disarmingly. "You can't really blame him, Dana. I'm the only family he has. Well, and my parents, of course.  _They_  love him." She sighed. "They sometimes wish I loved as much as they do."

She looked up. "I mean, I  _do_  love him, but... not like that. Sometimes I think I love him like the second half of me."

She shrugged. "Anyway. He likes you. A lot." She smiled fondly. "He'd kill me for saying this, but he never stays with anyone as long as he seems to be planning to stay with you."

She stood up, smirking ruefully. "I feel like a little sister snitching on her brother." She looked suddenly a little anxious. "Don't tell Fox I asked about him, okay? His responses to things like this are always a little hard to judge." She turned sadly toward the door. "Trust me, I know from experience."

* * *

"I'm not sure I want to do that, Sharon." Fox Mulder sat across from her at the diner, a hamburger before him.

"It'll be fun, Fox. Come on," she smiled, stealing a fry. "You know how Brian loves to throw parties."

He smiled that quixotic half-smile. "Sharon..."

She sighed mightily, stuffing another fry in her mouth. "All right. I'll tell him we aren't coming." She glared at him. "I can't say he'll be surprised."

Mulder, as always, just didn't know what to say. He didn't like parties. She knew that. He particularly didn't like parties to which half the office would be invited, allowing them a chance to stare, and speculate about his personal life. He wondered what Scully thought of the idea. She and Brian seemed to be having an awfully good time, but he didn't really think she wanted the whole world to know it. She just didn't seem the type.

Sharon just watched him for a moment while he stared off into space. He wasn't any different. Not really. She'd wanted to believe that he was, but she knew now it would be just the same. She looked at her watch and cursed. "Damn it, Fox. I have to meet Bri for that deposition." She got up to leave, not surprised when he just nodded her out.

* * *

"I'm sorry, Dana, I didn't know it would bother you," Brian said later that same day. "Look, it's not a firm thing. The only people I told were Mulder and Sharon. Well, and Barton. And Farley. It's okay, though. We'll call it off."

She looked up at him. He really did seem to think it was okay. "I just," she began, trying to explain. "I just don't like to let everyone know my personal business."

He dropped his eyes. "I don't think I ever really see it as my personal business. Everything is public, really. I mean, people know we're seeing each other."

She reached out to him, not quite touching his arm. "Yes, Brian, but that's all they know." She shrugged. "I'm sorry. I'm just more private than that."

He took her hand, smiling down at her. "It's okay, Dana. Maybe we can get Shar and Mulder over to my house for a barbeque or something."

She laughed. "Oh God! A double date with Mulder? I could never handle that." She sighed. "I'm pretty sure he couldn't either. He's polite, even pleasant, but I get the feeling sometimes that he doesn't actively like me."

"That one doesn't actively like himself," Brian countered. "Don't worry. God, Shar couldn't stand me when we were first assigned to me." He laughed. "She once called me a leprechaun with a thyroid problem!"

Dana laughed, her face glowing pleasantly. Brian wondered suddenly how long he would stay with this one. His track record for long-term relationships was pretty dismal. Still, Dana was strong, independent, well-adjusted---drop-dead gorgeous as a bonus...

He decided to stop thinking, and kissed her instead.

* * *

When Mulder arrived the next morning, Scully, Brian, and Sharon were at his desk, leaning over a file. "What are you guys doing?"

"Trying to figure out if this is the right file for those cat-killing freaks in Nevada, Mulder," Brian said irritably. "Jesus, don't you have any idea what alphabetical order means?"

"Sure. A-B-C-D-Q, right?" Mulder smiled, leaned pleasantly over Sharon's tall shoulder, and shook his head. "You were close," he said, reaching into a file drawer and pulling out a red-tabbed file. "This is it. Why do you want it?"

Brian opened it, spreading photos out on the table. Each one showed a dead black cat, spread-eagle, with its chest split open and its heart removed. Each one had an intricate design painted on its shaved belly. "They started up again, it seems."

"So," Mulder shrugged, standing as close to Sharon as he could get away with. She took it as his unspoken apology for the day before and leaned into him slightly. None of this was lost on Scully or Brian, who both began to feel a bit uncomfortable. "This is just a bunch of sick kids who have nothing better to do with their time than steal people's cats and pretend they're sacrificing them to Zeus. It's not an X-file, and it's  _certainly_  not a Violent Crimes one."

Brian's lips tightened as he drew out a second file, placing six photos next to the cats. They were all black-haired girls, about 14 years old.

"Jesus," Mulder whispered quietly. Each girl had her chest cavity torn open, each one's heart was gone, and on each one's stomach, the same intricate design was painted. He swallowed painfully. "Where did these happen?"

"Just outside of Reno. Like the other ones."

"I investigated that one myself," Mulder said, stepping back from the disturbing display on the desktop. "They were a bunch of kids. They were brought in, frightened half to death by the local bureau, and let loose. No more cat-killings." He stepped back in, staring at one girl in particular. She could almost have been Sharon at that age. "This cannot be that same group. That was sick fun, this is..."

"Just plain sick?" Sharon supplied.

* * *

"So who decided this called for a joint venture?" Mulder wondered as the four of them waited in line to board a plane to Nevada. He glared pointedly at Brian.

Who simply shrugged. "Rank has its privileges, Mulder."

"Well," said Mulder, deadpan, "you are that."

Brian tried to look hurt, but just could not pull it off. Brian Callahan had contacts that people like Mulder only dreamed about. He knew everyone. Better, he was liked by everyone. Rumor had it that the wives and mistresses of many high-ranking government official were willing to do anything for him. His one remaining relative, John A. Callahan, senior senator from Illinois, while distant from his surviving nephew, was always willing to help when Brian called.

Brian had obviously pulled some very tight strings to get this assignment, and Mulder wasn't sure he was altogether comfortable with it.

They walked back toward the rear of the plane, and came up short in Business class. Mulder looked at his boarding pass. "Why are you stopping? We're in coach, as usual."

Brian stowed his carry-on in the overhead bin. "Yes,  _you_  are." He brandished his gold credit card. "Wealth has  _its_  privileges, too."

Scully hefted her bag a little higher, shooting him a dirty look. "I hate the independently wealthy."

 

Mulder shifted, cursing as he barked his shin on the seat in front of him. Scully glanced at him, so quickly that he couldn't tell whether she was concerned or irritated.  _Probably irritated,_  he thought, with a private smirk. He annoyed her. Which, he guessed as he tried to get comfortable, was probably the point of the exercise.

They had been working together for a few months now, and he still hadn't figured her out. She had obviously been partnered with him for a reason, and he thought it very unlikely that it was a disciplinary step for her. She seemed to be competent, well-liked, very, very professional. As a pathologist and an M.D., she could at least understand the information she was passing on to her superiors. Which was certainly what she was doing. They never gave him a partner that wasn't a spy for  _somebody._

He closed his eyes and sighed, masking it with a yawn. She had to be spying for someone. He didn't know who, but he had to keep that reality firmly in mind. He was getting into dangerous territory now.

He was starting to trust her.

She was open, honest, blunt. Not at all what one would expect from someone whose only job was to inform on her partner. He wanted to think that maybe she wasn't the lackey he expected her to be. He wanted to believe that she was nothing more, or less, than his partner. But trust was something he gave grudgingly.

He sighed again, starting to doze. He'd watch her. Sooner or later, she'd show whether she could be trusted or not.

 

Scully glanced over, as Mulder shifted again in his sleep. Dreaming. He was an insomniac, she had heard. She supposed that was why he dozed so easily, catching sleep where he could get it.

She was sure now that this assignment was a mistake. He didn't really seem to like her, didn't trust her, and wouldn't talk to her. Hardly the most ideal working relationship. She sighed, remembering what Brian had said about partners  _learning_  to like one another. She hoped he was right.

Mulder shifted again, his long leg coming to rest against hers. She tried a trick that she had used with her brothers on long car trips, applying an increasing pressure on his leg, until he shifted suddenly, releasing her own limb. She turned back to the files she had been studying.

 

The case of the cat mutilations had been seen, originally as a cult occurrence. Mulder had been sent out as an expert--and probably as a punishment. He was not well-liked, she knew. She wondered idly what this partnership was likely to do to her career.

According to his notes (surprisingly thorough, given his track record), the case was obviously not cult related, but was instead some kind of teenage rite of passage. The boys who committed the mutilations ranged in age from 14 to 17, and were led by a 17-year-old named John Price.

Mulder's pysch profile on Price showed a flippant disregard for the pain of others. John came from what the file termed a "classically dysfunctional family." His father showed his son and daughter little respect, speaking more often with his belt than with his mouth. There were obvious signs that he beat his wife as well, though she was too afraid to even think of pressing charges, and certainly too afraid to be any protection for her children. John was, in Mulder's professional opinion, "a dangerous boy, who will likely become a dangerous man, unless given quick and thorough psychological help."

When questioned, the other boys were clearly afraid of Price. They had joined in his games to be "cool," but most said they would have stopped if they could have. One boy who did was beaten severely, and that had ended the rebellion.

The local bureau had decided, as they often did with cases involving young people, that intimidation was the best answer to their problem. The spectre of five FBI agents breathing down his neck was enough to stop even John Price. Mulder reported his observations on the boy to his school and to the social worker assigned to the poverty-stricken family, and made his way back to DC. His help was politely received, but Scully had a feeling that his files went straight out the window. Overworked teachers and social workers were not in the habit of dropping everything to get one boy help that he clearly did not want.

Scully rubbed her eyes. Maybe John Price had finally become the dangerous man that Mulder had predicted. She grabbed the paper file on the current case, glancing quickly past the photos, and reading what little the local police had been able to provide. The murders had occurred in roughly the same area of town as the mutilations--a rundown industrial area--and the symbol was the same.

She flipped back to one of the photos, trying very hard not to look at the young face attached to all that gore. The symbol, painted in green paint, had not been traced to any identifiable image. It was not a pictogram, hieroglyph, or logo. It almost appeared to be a bird, the twisted symbol of a dove. The resemblance was not close enough to draw a conclusion from, but Scully fancied that that was what she saw. As she read on, her theory that John Price might have been the killer was debunked. Four months before the killings began, he had been sent to a mental institution for those of malicious intent--a pleasant way of saying that a court had found him criminally insane after he had beaten a bartender into the hospital for trying to card him. John Price was definitely not behind this.

She looked over suddenly as Mulder's eyes snapped open. He seemed to take a moment to realize where he was, straightening up when he saw her looking at him. "Are we there yet?"

She shook her head, trying to ignore the slightly wild look still in his eyes. Trying not to wonder what he had dreamt about. "Another hour." She turned back to the computer file. "I read your profile of John Price, but what about the other boys? Do you think any of them might be involved?"

Mulder shook his head, trying vainly to stretch the tension out of his legs. "They were all pretty normal kids. Doing it because it was cool. Price was the leader, pretty much did the deed while the others looked on." He shrugged. "Boys will be boys, right?"

Scully looked back at the current file. "Not always."

 

"This is really mean, Bri," Sharon said as she sipped her complimentary drink, stretching her long legs in the ample room between seats. "You've got the money. You could have helped them out." She grimaced. "I hate to think of Fox all scrunched up in one of those chairs."

"Better him than me," Brian replied. Even business class was slightly too small for the giant. "Anyway, now I have you all to myself." He leered suggestively.

"Oh, you wish," she replied tartly, glancing back at the file Brian had laid out on the tray before him. She shook her head, leaning back tiredly in her chair. "Forget it. I don't want to look at those things anymore."

Brian dutifully closed the file. If Sharon didn't want to research something anymore, it didn't get researched for a while. He had been reamed by her too many times for continuing to work when she wanted to stop.

He sipped his ginger ale. In his opinion, planes and liquor simply did not mix. He was too prone to motion sickness already. "So, what do you think of Dana?"

She sat back with her eyes closed. "We've already had this conversation, Bri."

"I know," he replied. "I want to have it again."

Sharon didn't move. "She's a wonderful girl. I love her to death. Marry her now. I give my full consent.  _Slainte_  and long life." She raised her head and looked at him. "There. Conversation over."

Brian was silent for a long while. When he spoke, it was a quiet, thoughtful sound. "Do you think she  _would_  marry me?"

Sharon sat up slowly, searching his face. He was serious. She almost fainted right there. Brian Callahan, Womanizing Terror of the FBI, was seriously talking marriage.  _Too bad it's with the wrong girl._  
She tried to be gentle. "No, Bri, I don't." She touched his hand as his eyes dropped. "She doesn't seem like the marrying kind. She's young yet." Sharon grinned to herself. Dana was still more than a year younger than she herself had been when Fox had asked her to marry him. "She's too dedicated to the job now."

She tried to say more, but couldn't find an easy way. Dana Scully had something in her. The same something, in fact, that Fox had. A drive to know. A singularity of purpose that made other considerations difficult to handle.

Bri just couldn't understand, she knew. He didn't have that drive, and hadn't ever realized that that was the thing that made Fox, and Dana what they were--for good or ill. Scully was a good woman, and would make someone a good wife, but Sharon thought that Brian just wasn't the man who could handle her single-mindedness.

Brian nodded morosely. He thought to himself that it was probably better that he not think about it. He was supremely capable of placing certain things in a category called "someone else's problem." Much as he felt he really did love her, Dana Scully was obviously in that category.

"Why is it that all the good ones are on some quest for truth?" he asked, downing the last of his ginger ale. He didn't expect Sharon to answer. She was in the same boat as he was: Mulder and Scully seemed to be cut from the same cloth.

"Do you think he likes her?" Brian asked suddenly.

Sharon turned to him, her forehead wrinkling. "What do you mean?"

"Well, you didn't like me when we first started to work together. Do you think he likes her?"

Sharon was silent for a long moment. "I think he trusts her. I think that scares him." She sighed. "He hasn't ever been able to really trust people. The things he gets into, the things he's seen. They make you paranoid. Someone like Fox, who was paranoid from the beginning..." she let it trail off.

Brian smiled slightly. "She thinks he hates her. Well, her words were actually 'I don't think he actively likes me.'"

Sharon smiled back. "I think I said the same thing when we started working together." She shrugged. "Partners are scary things." She poked his ribs. "God knows I never thought I'd ever trust someone like you with my life."

Brian chuckled. What was it he had said about partnership versus love?

* * *

The hotel was average, in all respects: average rooms, with average decor, averagely clean. They decided unanimously to take an hour or so to freshen up, and then meet back in Scully's room to discuss their plan of action for the morning. They all wore comfortable clothes, and Brian took every opportunity to simply stare at Scully, in sweat pants and a t-shirt, her hair pulled back in a ponytail, and Sharon, in a long black shift, whose hair fell carelessly about her shoulders. Sharon convinced him stop with a well-placed blow to his midriff.

Scully had spread out the photos on her small table, making room only for her laptop, which held the notes she had made to herself on the plane, as well as information on the local law enforcement.

"Robin MacReady is the local police captain. I spoke with him before we left Washington, and he's agreed to set up some interviews with the parents of some of the victims. He also said he'd be happy to take us around to the various crime sights."

"He's being awfully helpful," Sharon remarked, having had her problems with locals in the past.

Scully's face was bleak. "He knew two of the girls. Friends of the family. He willing to do whatever he has to." She flipped an electronic page to the next set of notes. "They're holding the last three victims at the morgue for us to take a look at. The others had already been autopsied and released to family before the FBI was called in."

Brian nodded glumly. The images of those young girls, not too much older than his sister had been, were unsettling. "We'll split up then. Mulder, you're better at the on-sites, so we'll leave that to you two." He turned toward Scully. "I'll want you to look at the bodies, too, but the on-sites are more immediate." She nodded. He looked at Sharon in partner shorthand, and nodded. "We'll handle the interviews."

"I told MacReady we'd meet at police headquarters by nine tomorrow morning."

 

It was ten-thirty before Mulder and Scully got in to see MacReady. The four agents were met by his assistant, Lieutenant Sandra Byrton. "I'm sorry, Captain's in a meeting with the Mayor."

Byrton introduced Sharon and Brian to a young officer named Liner. He took them down to the conference rooms where the parents were waiting, as Byrton leaned in confidentially to Mulder and Scully. "That why our Lady Mayor is here actually. Andrea Christensen's mother is a personal friend, and she complained about having to come in to give another statement."

Scully's lips compressed slightly. If the woman wouldn't go that far to find out who had done this kind of thing to her own daughter...

Byrton caught the movement and shrugged, a little disgusted, a little resigned. "The rich ones aren't always the best parents. Polly Carrs's mom is up for anything right now. If we wanted to use  _her_  as bait, she'd say yes. As soon as she could find someone to take care of her five other kids--her husband left last year, and welfare doesn't leave much money for daycare."

Scully nodded as they were ushered into the lieutenant's office.

They had a chance to hash out all of the facts of the case, as well as discuss Byrton's feelings and observations, before the captain was finished with his meeting. The only thing she felt they really had in common was their looks. "All of them were just beautiful girls, you know. I don't know how that could be considered a commonality, but it's the truth. "

Their ages actually ranged from eleven to sixteen, and they didn't seem to have any academic or extra-curricular similarities. Two of them were cheerleaders, one was a cross-country runner, one a swimmer, and the other two straight academics. Two played instruments, flute and trumpet. Polly Carr, the sixteen-year-old, had worked with illiterate classmates in her spare time.

Mulder added this background information to the bare facts of the case, trying to see a pattern. This was his asset in the FBI--his patterns. He couldn't see any now. He also couldn't see anything... weird. Unexplainable. He may not be able to find the pattern yet, but he knew there was one. Whatever this case was, it was certainly no X-File.

 

The office door opened and Mulder shot Scully a startled look, which she returned. The man who walked in, whose security tag claimed that he was Robin MacReady, looked amazingly like their own boss, Walter Skinner. He was a little taller, a little less bulky, but the resemblance was still uncanny.

It took Mulder a moment to rise to his feet. "Captain MacReady. I'm Fox Mulder, this is Dana Scully."

"Call me Robin, Agent Mulder," MacReady replied. Scully almost smiled at the way he had placed the agents in authority by staying on a last name basis, while inviting a first name one from them. He would have made a great politician "Sorry for the delay, but Mrs. Lovy is hard to argue with."

"Political women often are," Mulder agreed, ignoring the wrathful looks from both women present.

"You've brought them up to speed, Sandy?"

"Yeah," she replied comfortably. "The other two agents, Callahan and Raese, are down talking to the parents." She shot him a significant look, which he replied to with a shrug.

"She wasn't thrilled, but she's not going to go down there and throw them out, Sandy."

"Good, I'd hate to have to arrest the Mayor." Byrton's smile was familiarly insubordinate.

 _Affair._  Scully said silently. One more look at Sandy as they walked out the door confirmed it.

 

MacReady's office was comfortably arranged. He had a bowling trophy on his filing cabinet and a picture of a beautiful woman on his desk. Scully looked at it. "Wife?"

MacReady shook his head, bashful. It was disconcerting to see someone so like Skinner being bashful, and she almost missed it when he said, "No, my sister. I'm not married yet."

"Engaged?" Scully ignored the perplexed look Mulder shot her. A woman wanted to know these things about the people she worked with.

MacReady smiled at Scully's astute observation. "Sandy's resigning in May. We'll be married in September."

Scully smiled through the shock of Mulder's reaction. He wasn't the only person here who could put together patterns.

MacReady offered them seats and sighed as he sat himself. "I really am glad to have you here, Agent Mulder, Agent Scully. We're at our wits end here."

"Have you talked to any of the girls' friends?" Mulder asked, getting down to business.

MacReady nodded. "Not much information from them. Nothing really new in the girls' lives. Just school, boys, and clothes." His eyes glazed over for a moment, but he shook himself out of it quickly. Mourning wasn't going to find the one who had killed his niece Molly's friend. "We're having a Hell of a time coming up with a motive. They weren't all good students--they weren't even all good kids. Sally Kendry had a drug problem, and Andrea Christensen has been brought in for shoplifting I don't know how many times."

"What about the area where the bodies were dumped?" Scully asked. "Anything significant there?"

MacReady shook his head, exhausted. He had been going non-stop for a week and a half now, and it was starting to wear on him. "No. Just a rundown industrial park." He anticipated her next question. "We've scoured the entire area--no evidence that the murders were actually committed anywhere around there. It was just a convenient place to dump the bodies."

"Maybe not," Mulder disagreed. "The murderer always dumped them on the same block. After six murders, that becomes a fix, not a convenience."

MacReady nodded hesitantly. "I'm not sure what could be of significance there, though. The warehouses down there are just so much scrap wood."

"Who owns them?"

"The banks mostly. One or two are still held by families around here."

"Can I get that information, please?"

MacReady picked up the phone. "Sure." He asked his secretary to get that together. "Jane will have that information when we get back from the scene."

 

"The scene" was a ramshackle stretch of road, lined by buildings that hadn't seen paint in decades. MacReady showed them each of the dump sites in order of deaths. After the fourth, Mulder turned quickly on MacReady. Scully hadn't been working with him long, but she knew that look--Mulder had just found his pattern.

"Do you have a detailed street map of the area?"

"Sure," the police chief said, looking uncertainly at Scully for some clue to her partner's shift in gears. "Back at the office."

Mulder shook his head and pulled a pen out of his jacket. "Scully, can I borrow your notepad?"

She surrendered it willingly, watching as he drew a rough box approximating the building, followed by dots at each dump site. He gestured for MacReady to show them the next one, taking his bearings and marking it, doing the same with the sixth. When he was done, he had a rough circle around the building.

She leaned in closely, whispering, "It's a circle, Mulder. I could have told you that."

He smiled, looking disconcertingly like her big brother used to when he was about to show her up. He took the pencil and drew a line, connecting the sites in order of the killings.

It was the beginnings of her twisted dove.

* * *

"You can leave now if you wish, Mrs. Christensen," Sharon said, trying to keep the annoyance out of her voice. The woman's lack of emotion--barring, of course, her irritation at being called in again to talk about the murders--was getting on her nerves. God knew, if Sharon's daughter had been killed in such a brutal way, she would have been screaming for blood.

Christensen seemed to sense Sharon's disapproval. "It's not that I didn't love my daughter, Ms. Raese, but I have obligations to think about."

 _Yeah, like the Mother of the Year awards, right?_  Sharon thought coldly. She was thankful when Brian, his own irritation held firmly in check, rose with the woman and shook her hand. "We understand, of course, Mrs. Christensen. We'll call you when we come up with something." Christensen smiled perfunctorily and left.

"That woman didn't deserve to have children," Ms. Carr said, flipping her long black hair out of her face. She had been the most talkative of the parents, giving them all the information she could about her daughter's activities.

Polly had been a good student, and a better social activist, a trait she had obviously inherited from her mother. Polly's after school activities ranged from teaching remedial reading to helping out at the local Boy's and Girl's Club. "She was trying to make enough money to try modeling," her mother said wistfully. She had obviously shed all the tears she could, and what was left was a quiet longing. Brian knew the feeling. "It just didn't work out that way."

Sharon turned to the one father in the room, giving Carr a moment to recover. "Mr. Baker, did Kelly have any extra-curricular activities, besides her running?"

The short, dark-haired man looked at her with haunted eyes. Kelly had been his youngest. "Actually, I think she wanted to be a model, too. A couple of weeks before... she asked me for some money to get some pictures taken." He ignored the tear that ran down his face. "They were gorgeous."

A tall, hopelessly thin woman leaned forward. "Jenny got her picture taken lately as well." Mrs. Hull rocked back carefully, looking fully as fragile as she felt. "She and Molly MacReady went together."  
Sharon and Brian exchanged a look. "Mrs. Gradon, Mrs. Kendry? Were your daughters interested in modeling?"

Both women shook their heads, but in a desultory way that showed that they wouldn't necessarily have been told.

The questioning ending shortly thereafter. They were sure they had their pattern, and they were loath to put the parents through any more pain than necessary.

* * *

The two teams discussed their findings over an early dinner.

"I still don't know what this has to do with the cat killings," Brian declared angrily, cutting into the steak before him. He seemed all right, but the women were both keeping an eye on him. His sister could not be far from his mind right now. "I mean, six girls, who all may or may not have wanted to be models, killed in the same manner, dumped around a building in a disused area of town, in a pattern that begins to roughly approximate the designs that were painted on their bodies?" He took a huge bite, and managed to be coherent around it. "It just doesn't add up."

Mulder pushed at his food. Unusual for him, but he had been uncharacteristically silent for most of the day. Scully and Sharon were both wondering how much of  _his_  sister he saw in those girls. "The cat killings might have nothing to do with this, you know," he said quietly.

Sharon shook her head. "Come on, how could they not? Same design, same damage. There's a connection. We just can't see it."

Mulder shrugged.

* * *

Sharon knocked quietly on Mulder's door, not really expecting him to be asleep, but keeping it down just in case. "Fox," she called softly.

"It's open," he replied.

She looked across the room at him, comfortable in his black t-shirt and jeans. His eyes were dark, though, and she knew what he was thinking about. She determined not to mention it.  _Take his mind off of her,_  she told herself.  _Put his mind on the job._

"Do you want to go do some research with me?"

He smiled wanly.

"Not  _that_  kind of research," she chided good-naturedly. "I was going to go down to the newspaper and check out any ads they might have had lately for photographers."

Mulder grabbed his jacket, shrugging into it as he crossed the room. "Where's Brian?"

"Asleep, probably," she replied, then bristled slightly at his upraised eyebrow. "We're not joined at the hip, Fox."

"Good," he smiled. "That could make things... complicated."

She swatted at him as they approached the car.

 

Brian flicked ashes off the balcony, not bothering to turn around as someone approached him from behind. Dana Scully leaned against the railing beside him, watching him take another drag and tip the ashes toward the parking lot below.

"I didn't know you smoked."

He looked thoughtfully at the glowing cigarette before inhaling again. "Usually just the smell of them makes me nauseous," he confessed, shedding more ash. "But once in a while, I need one so bad I think I'll die."

"Those interviews took a lot out of you today."

He blew out smoke and nodded. "I remember that look--the look in the eyes of all those parents today? I saw it in the mirror for years." He flicked the cigarette butt off the balcony, spinning away from it to rest his back on the railing. "Times like this, I think I'm actually glad my parents died in that crash." He shuddered. "I can't imagine what it must be like to lose a kid."

"No different than losing a sister, I'm sure," Dana said quietly, laying a tentative hand on his arm.

He covered it with his own, smiling sadly down at her. "I think it is. A little sister is like... like someone you take care of. You love her, sometimes more than anything else, but..." His eyes closed painfully. "A daughter is a part of you."

Dana said nothing, wondering if her partner would have seen it that way. Probably not. He probably tried not to see it at all. He just closed up, like he had all day today.

As if reading her mind, Brian slipped an arm comfortably around her small frame, coaxing her to lean into him. "Spooky's really bothered by this."

She nodded, not even noticing his use of that nickname. "Not that he'd ever tell  _me_  about it." She took a deep breath, realizing how inappropriate her anger was. "I can't imagine how hard this must be on both of you."

"Harder on him, I think," Brian said. Dana turned around to face him, as he kept one of her hands firmly in his. "I had the funeral, Dana," he explained quietly. "I saw them properly laid out, saw them given to God, laid in the ground. He just has the absence. My parents, John, Mandy... they're dead. Sam's just... gone."

She turned back around, letting him enfold her as she nodded. She sighed at all the things her partner would not let her know.

Brian squeezed her regretfully. "Damn it, now I've got  _you_  depressed."

She shook her head with a smile. "I'm just thinking."

He took her hand, leading her toward his open door. "I think maybe it's time we both stopped thinking, at least for a while."

* * *

Scully glanced at the travel clock next to the bed as she grabbed for her cellphone. Four fifteen. Which meant only one thing. She shook Brian awake as she answered the phone. "Scully. ... Yes ... No, thank you, I'll let them know ... Goodbye."

Brian was wide awake and already struggling into his clothes. "Another one?"

She just nodded, dialing Mulder's number. "It's me. ... Yeah, there's another one. ... Okay, I'll pick her and Brian up on the way out." She shot an apologetic look at Brian, who shrugged it off.

Scully had managed to shirk into her shirt and sweatpants while carrying on the conversation with Mulder. Brian shook his head. Sharon was right. Dana had  _that look_  in her eyes. The look of a woman married to the job, to the "hunt for truth." He sighed, hurrying to get his gun as she strode out.

Sharon hadn't gone to bed after she and Mulder had returned from the newspaper empty-handed, so she needed no time to get ready when Scully knocked at her door. She didn't question why Scully and Brian appeared together, and Scully filled her in as Mulder approached from the other side.

 

They were silent as they drove to the site--easy to find, with the police lights flashing. As they got out, Scully noted that it was right where the next point of the twisted dove should have been. She moved quickly to the body, stretching examination gloves over her hands as she went. Mulder and the others headed for the police chief.

"Do we have a name?" the chief asked the obviously green officer before him.

"Her id says she's Dawn Solomon, sir." The cop looked a little faint. "She was sixteen."

"And probably wanted to be a model," Mulder muttered under his breath. He and Sharon had found no recent ads for modeling photographers in the local paper, but the modeling was obviously a solid link. Like the placement of the girls. The killer was retracing the pattern with their bodies.

"How did he get past?" MacReady was asking, rounding on the officer's more experienced partner. "You were supposed to have complete surveillance on this place."

"I don't know, sir," she said quietly, like a child reprimanded by her teacher. "We made our sweep of the area and came back. Couldn't have been more than a minute, but the body was just here, and there was no one in sight."

MacReady turned away, disgusted. "All right, I want a sweep done of the inside of this building, right now. Maybe there's a tunnel to the sewers...  _Something_  that would explain how he just disappeared."

Of course, there was no tunnel. MacReady had hardly expected there to be. None of the officers on duty had heard a car approach, but that didn't mean there hadn't been one. He ran his hand over his balding head and cursed, walking over to where Scully was rising from her examination.

"A hunting knife," she concluded, "or maybe a military-issue field knife. He stabbed her, here," she showed the others the wound, "then just sliced her open. Took a few blows, and he probably had to rip the sternum back with his hands." She threw Brian a chagrined look as he gagged slightly. "It looks like he pulled the heart out whole. The veins and arteries were ripped, not cut." Brian turned away, Sharon almost smiling at his squeamishness.

"I want to take a look at the others as soon as possible," Scully continued after a brief glance to see that Brian was all right. "There's some powder on her hands--phosphor, maybe--that I didn't see on any of the other reports."

Mulder perked up, bending down to examine the girl's hand. "Phosphor? Like a photographer's flash."

"Maybe," Scully agreed.

"There's a bit of glass here in her thumb," Mulder said, showing Scully, who immediately retrieved it with a tweezers and placed it in an evidence bag. "Like she broke a flash bulb between her fingers."

"So how do we find this photographer?" Brian asked from a safe distance away. He still looked a little green, but he was starting to get angry. No one had the right to do this kind of thing. They had to stop the guy. Now.

Mulder stood up, stretching lightly. "Let's check out the schools. Maybe he advertises there."

Sharon nodded. "Or local hangouts. Video arcades, convenience stores, restaurants."

Scully stood as well, stripping off her examination gloves and gesturing to the local coroner to get the body to the morgue. "Why not just talk to their friends again, this time focusing on the modeling?" she suggested. "Girls that age tell their friends everything."

Something about the way Scully said it reminded Brian of their conversation with the parents. "Captain MacReady," he called, walking around the coroner's men. "Captain, Mrs. Hull said that Jenny and your niece went to get their pictures taken by a fashion photographer a few weeks back."

MacReady nodded. "Is he the connection?"

"Maybe," Brian said carefully, never jumping to conclusions. "Can we talk to your niece?"

"Sure, I'll call her mother first thing in the morning." He grinned at his inadvertent joke--it was already nearing daybreak. "Well, a little later in the morning, anyway." He gestured to Brian, taking in the other agents as well. "Go back to your hotel and get some sleep. I'll have Jack, Sarah, and Molly meet you at headquarters at eight thirty. That should give you enough time to at least take the edge off."

Scully decided to take a shower and then head for the morgue, letting the others follow up with Molly MacReady. Her examination that morning had reminded her that there were three--now four--families waiting to bury their daughters. She didn't want to keep them waiting any longer.

* * *

Molly MacReady had the curly red hair and pale skin of a Irish lass, and the sweet disposition to match. Her mother Sarah hovered protectively over her quiet daughter, her husband Jack, Captain MacReady's kid brother, sat to one side, his large hands forever fidgeting.

"Molly," Sharon asked carefully, "Your uncle tells us that you went to see a photographer with Jenny Hull?"

Molly nodded sadly. "Last week. We were supposed to go and pick them up the day after she... died."

"Where did you find out about the photographer?"

"He advertises in the school newspapers." She looked up for the first time, her quick mind seeing where this questioning was leading. "He's taken lots of pictures. He's a nice guy, you know? He'd never do this... sick stuff." She dropped her eyes again.

"Who else do you know who has had their picture taken by him?"

"Lots of people, like I said. Janis Parton, Mary Orland," she seemed almost reluctant to give the next name, and rushed on after speaking it. "Amy Gradon, but he didn't do it! He's just a nice young guy who takes pictures." As if to try to prove her point, Molly produced her own proofs; beautifully posed pictures, taking full advantage of the child's best features.

Sharon took the offered pieces, looking at each one, then turning one over to look at the photographer's stamp:

 

Jimmy Paliagi  
Photographer  
1324 North Prospect

She handed the photos back to Molly, whose eyes raked her over speculatively. "Really, Molly," she said quietly, "We just need to check everything. Anything else you can tell us about what was going on with Amy and Jenny before this happened would really help."

Molly MacReady had very little else to contribute. The only thing that Amy and Jenny had done lately that was out of the ordinary was the photography session, but Molly was adamant that that had nothing to do with their deaths.

 

"I don't know, Fox," Sharon said after the MacReadys left. "Kid's usually have pretty good instincts on these things. Maybe Molly is telling the truth." She held up under his disbelieving stare. "Just because the modeling is the key, doesn't automatically make this guy the killer."

Mulder shook his head, admitting the possibility. "Well, let's go take a look, anyway. He could at least give us a clue." He glanced at his watch. "Scully probably won't be done with those autopsies until this afternoon, so we'll have to go on without her."

As they headed upstairs, they were intercepted by the tiny young woman who acted as Captain MacReady's secretary--and frequently as his memory. "Agent Mulder, I thought you might like to get that information on the owners of the buildings surround those crime scenes. Captain MacReady said you would be by for them yesterday, but..." she trailed off, her manner suspiciously chiding.

Mulder was quick to apologies, and quicker to grab the folder with the information in it. "I'm sorry. We had a full day yesterday and it completely slipped my mind."

They headed for the rental car, as Mulder flipped through the stack of papers, searching for the building at the center of the killer's pattern. He grunted. "The building belongs to a local Vietnamese family--the Dangs. It used to be a meat packing plant."

"Is that meant to be helpful?" Sharon asked rhetorically.

* * *

Jimmy Paliagi's studio was in an upscale area of town, bustling with business in the early afternoon. The entryway was decorated with framed samples of his work. "They're all here," Sharon noted, pointing out pictures of all of the victims, dispersed at intervals among the other portraits. Molly MacReady's portrait was also prominently displayed.

"I wanted to sort of do a tribute to them," said the young man who had stepped out from the darkroom at that moment. He could not have been more than twenty-five or twenty-six, his white-blond hair falling halfway down his back. "It's so sad."

"And very coincidental," Mulder said, turning from the portrait of Andrea Christensen, the young girl so disconcertingly like Sharon Raese.

Paliagi colored slightly. "Don't think I don't know that all the girls who died had all posed for me shortly before," he said quietly. "I know it  _too_  well." He suddenly looked up, his eyes challenging. "Who are you, by the way?"

They all produced their ids. He shrugged lightly. "What did you want, Agent Mulder?"

"Modeling seems to be the only thing all these girls had in common, Mr. Paliagi. That makes you pretty suspect."

Paliagi remained silent. He could not really say anything to balance that observation. He knew he had done nothing wrong, but proving it in this case was going to be pretty tough. He kept his eyes on the dark-haired agent, as Mulder turned to examine the framed photos again. "You specialize in young girls, Mr. Paliagi?"

The way he said it made Jimmy blush. "Kids don't expect too much professionalism. I'm pretty casual with my sessions." He hesitated, realizing how that might sound. "I just... Kids are easier to work with."  
Mulder turned back to him, appraising the awkward young man, so unbalanced by his inquiry. They had spoken to a few other girls he had worked with, and they had confirmed that he did not seem to act inappropriately with his subjects. Mulder had been hoping to make the kid reveal something, but he was rapidly beginning to see that there was nothing to be revealed.

With a tiny movement of his head, Mulder bowed out of the questioning, leaving it to Brian and Sharon to glean whatever else might be found. He stood in the background, as Sharon asked about what the victims had been like on their shoots--nervous, shy, open. The questioning was from this point on pretty perfunctory, and they left the studio knowing very little more than they had known going in.  
Mulder shook his head. "If he's not the killer, maybe he's still the link."

Sharon nodded, sharing a positive glance with her partner. "We should stake this place out. Whoever the killer is, he must be getting a fix on the girls through the studio."

Brian nodded, ushering Sharon into the passenger seat and closing the door behind her. "We'll drop you back at the hotel and get started tonight." When Mulder seemed about to object, Brian shot him his best I-am-the-ranking-agent-here look, and pointed out, "Dana's going to be pretty wiped out after dealing with these corpses all day. At least give  _her_  a chance to recover a little bit. You can relieve us at ten tonight"

A clearly concerned look came over Mulder's face for the briefest second, and he nodded. Brian smiled to himself as he slid behind the wheel. He should tell Dana about that. She obviously didn't know her partner quite as well as she thought she did.

* * *

Mulder knocked quietly on Scully's door. "Scully?"

He waited for a minute, then turned, finally deciding that she must be asleep, when she pulled open the door, her hair dripping, her dressing robe wrapped wetly around her.

"Sorry," he said, embarrassed. "I didn't mean to drag you out of the tub."

She shook her head, effectively dousing him. "I just got out." She ushered him in, grabbing a towel and going to work on her hair as they talked. "Did you have any luck today?"

He nodded, settling into the overstuffed chair next to her bed. "We went to see the photographer."

She stopped toweling her hair, turning to face him. "Who is he?"

He shook his head at her unspoken question. "Jimmy Paliagi. He's just a young kid trying to make a living. He seems to feel pretty bad about the whole thing. I think he's surprised no one came to talk to him earlier. He knew he was the link, even if the police didn't."

She snorted. "So why didn't he come forward?"

Mulder shrugged. "Scared, probably." He stretched lazily, listening to joints pop. "How did the autopsies go?" He tried not to let any worry get into his voice. He was used to seeing dead bodies in all kinds of conditions, but Scully sometimes seemed to be so young to him, he almost forgot that she had probably seen more bodies in her time than he had.

She sighed. "Not much new. The knife was probably military issue. The cuts correspond to a field knife issued during the Vietnam war."

Mulder sat up a little straighter. "That building is owned by a Vietnamese family."

Scully sat down, thinking. "What would Vietnam have to do with this? None of the girls was Vietnamese. None of them was even Asian."

Whatever Mulder might have said was interrupted by the shrill ring of his cellphone.

"Mulder."

"Fox," Sharon sounded excited. "Is Dana back yet?"

"Yeah, she's right here. What's going on?"

"We might have found our guy. A young black-haired girl just came out of Paliagi's with her proofs, and she picked up a tail. We're following them."

"Get dressed quick," Mulder said, pulling the phone away from his mouth. As Scully grabbed some clothes and headed for the bathroom, he turned back to the phone. "Where are you headed?"

He stayed on the phone with her as he and Scully got on the road, speeding to catch up. Scully took a moment to call MacReady and let him know what was going on.

"Be careful, Agent Scully," he cautioned. "This guy's sick."

 

The chase headed toward one of the local area high schools. The young girl parked a few blocks down from the school, the crowded parking lots making the distance necessary. As she looked both ways to cross the street, the dark, beat-up old hatchback Brian and Sharon had been tailing gunned its engine, pulling up alongside the girl. She shrank back a moment, and screamed when the hatchback's door slammed open and a large ham of a hand grabbed her and pulled her in.

"Damn it, he's got her!" Sharon declared into her cellphone, holding on to her armrest as Brian pulled out after the car.

"Keep up with them," Mulder said. "We're almost caught up to you now."

 

The chase continued for twenty minutes more, ending in a rundown area, south of Reno proper. Sharon gave Mulder the address, and was surprised to have to repeat it.

Mulder sounded disbelieving. "That's John Price's house."

Scully looked over at him. "But John Price is in the sanitarium, it can't be him."

Mulder suddenly saw more of the elusive pattern. "Mr. Price is a Vietnam vet."

"Okay, Fox. We're here. We're going to go on in."

"Watch yourselves," he warned. "We'll be there in a minute."

He hung up the phone, and they drove on a few moments before Scully turned to her partner. "Are you saying that John Price's father is responsible for the cat mutilations  _and_  these killings?"

Mulder took the next left hard, trying to make up time. He shook his head. "No. Look, forget about the cats for a minute--"

"But, Mulder--"

"Just for a minute. Del Price did two tours of Vietnam, and came home pretty messed up, as the rest of the family shows. The knife used on the girls is military issue from the war. The building in the center of the dump site is owned by a Vietnamese family.  _That's_  the pattern. Where the cats fit in, I have no idea--we'll have to go over that later--but these current killings have something to do with Vietnam, and Del Price's time there."

"How?" Scully demanded almost angrily, grabbing for the door's armrest as Mulder careened around another corner. "None of them are Asian. They're all just kids! What could their connection to the Vietnam war  _possibly_  be?"

Mulder pulled the car up short, parking behind the rental sedan Brian and Sharon had driven. "I don't know Scully." He wrenched open his door, heading down the street toward Price's house. "I just know that that's the pattern."

They had almost reached the ramshackle crackerbox house when a woman began to scream.

* * *

Sharon and Brian parked a couple of blocks away, giving themselves a chance not be seen. Mulder had said that they were no more than a few minutes behind, and the two agents in the lead did not want to risk waiting for them.

The Price house seemed to be standing mostly out of habit. The gutters sagged, the paint, if there had been any, had long since peeled away. Brian and Sharon rounded the corner beyond the house just as the garage door closed. "I'll take front," Brian said quietly, pulling out his gun. "You go around back. And watch it," he added as she broke off from him. "He's probably armed with more than a knife."

He eased up to the door, which stood open, the screen door swinging slightly in the breeze. He slipped in, grimacing as the screen squeaked. He listened carefully, heard voices below him, and started looking for the stairs to the basement. He reached the kitchen, and found a tall, spare woman curled up on the floor. He knelt beside her, recognizing her face as that of Jane Price, the mother of the original cat mutilator. "Mrs. Price?"

He winced as she turned over slowly. The left side of her face was swelling almost as he watched. "Mrs. Price, where did he go? Did your husband do this?"

She nodded tentatively, then tensed as she saw the gun in his hand. "Who are you? Are you going to hurt him?" He tensed in turn as her voice escalated. "Don't hurt him! Don't you go near him!" She tried to rise, striking out at him.

Brian was amazed and a little sickened to see the woman defending the man who had just knocked her flat on her face--and from the look of her, he did it often. Brian knew he would have to go slowly with her. "Mrs. Price, we have to take him in. You know that. You know that what he's doing is wrong."

"But he's sick," she declared. "It's not his fault. He's sick!"

She clung to him now, and he almost brushed her off, knowing he was losing precious time. He wondered where the hell the others were. "I won't hurt him, Mrs. Price. We'll get him help," he promised. "I know he's sick, we'll get him help, but you have to tell me where he is."

She nodded mutely, pointed behind her toward the stairs to the basement. "You promised," she reminded him desperately. "You said you wouldn't hurt him."

Brian nodded compassionately. "I have friends coming, Mrs. Price. They'll take care of you. Please, just stay up here."

She nodded again, dropping into a kitchen chair. As he descended the stairs, Brian heard a shot ring out. Jane Price started to scream.

* * *

Mulder pushed the door open, not bothering to keep quiet. The caterwauling the woman in the kitchen was sending up could have woken the dead, and most certainly could mask the slightly squeaky screen door. They entered the room and saw Jane Price just screaming. No one else in the room, no other sounds, just Jane Price screaming. Scully went to her, trying to calm her down--more importantly, trying to shut her up, though there was little point to it now.

Another shot rang out from the room below. That seemed to be the last straw for the fragile woman's nerves. She fell in a heap. Scully bent down to check, but it was obvious that Price had merely fainted. Mulder gestured to the stairs, just as another, different gunshot sounded.

"Shotgun," he whispered quietly as they descended.

He was relieved to hear Brian's voice, clear and persuasive. "Drop the rifle, Mr. Price."

"You don't get it, soldier!" Price yelled back. "You can't see what they are!"

Mulder and Scully eased down the stairs, taking in the scene quickly. The basement was one large unfinished room. There was a stack of boxes at the base of the stairs, provided a decent screen for them.

Price crouched in the middle of the room, his back to them, hiding behind a workbench, the young girl motionless at his feet.

Scully winced. The girl's dress front was marred by a huge and growing patch of blood. The doctor knew from her autopsies of the other girls that they were actually killed by a thrust to the heart. The girl had been dead before the knife came out.

Brian and Sharon had taken up positions across from each other, on either side of Price. They were too exposed for Mulder's liking, though Brian had another workbench just behind him which could be used as shelter. Among them, the four agents had Price in the middle of a deadly triangle.

Mulder decided to apprise the vet of that situation. "Give it up, Price," he called, rising into view, with a stern look toward Scully to stay where she was.

Price whirled on him, waving the shotgun carelessly. Scully eased to her left, trying to get into some sort of firing position while keeping her presence secret. She had a feeling that Mulder was making a real mistake with this one. Price didn't seem like he could be intimidated: Three on one was not likely to sway him.

Price laughed a little, a distressingly empty sound. "What are you doing? You call yourselves Feds?" He laughed again, swinging the barrel around to aim at Sharon Raese, staring at her--at her hair. Mulder's trigger finger tightened. "You brought her here! You don't even know what she is, but you brought her here anyway." Price settled himself for the shot. "Once she's dead, you'll see what she is."

The two men fired simultaneously, Mulder's shot catching Price in the neck, Price's catching Sharon in the stomach. Mulder froze, finger still on the trigger, as Brian ran to his partner.

Scully heard a muted sob come from behind Mulder. She shifted slightly, realizing that Price's wife had come down the stairs during the exchange. Mrs. Price whimpered again, staring at the back of Mulder's frozen form, and beyond it at the body of her husband. "You son of a bitch," she whispered. "You killed him." Her voice rose in intensity, and Scully tensed as the woman pulled a gun slowly out from behind her. "You son of a bitch!"

Scully saw it all happening. Mulder wouldn't--couldn't--move. No amount of shouting on her part was going to effect that. She couldn't shoot Mrs. Price without risking a stray tensing of muscle that would cause the bullet to fly from the woman's gun anyway. There was one opening left to her.

She tackled him just below the knees, felling him easily, but not quickly enough. She felt Mulder jerk to the side as she brought him down, heard rather than felt the second jolt, as his head impacted with the nearby stack of crates. She rolled quickly out from under him, training her gun on Mrs. Price.

But Mrs. Price had already dropped the gun, collapsing into a heap as she stared in horror at the blood running down the side of Mulder's face, catching in his hair. Scully went to her, securing the gun, and handcuffing the sobbing woman to the stairwell's banister.

 

She bent over Mulder, momentarily distressed by the amount of blood pooled in his left eye socket. She felt for a pulse. Too fast, but strong. He was breathing regularly, though he almost certainly had a concussion, given the severity of the bruises on the right side of his face from the impact with the sturdy wooden crates.

She left him, calling to Brian, and swiftly dialing emergency on her cellphone. Mulder could certainly wait. Even if he lost the eye, his would be the lesser of the team's injuries. "Brian?" she called again, approaching the two agents at a run.

Brian had Sharon's head on his lap, but even at this distance, Scully could see that she was already dead. She knelt beside them, watching the tears fall from Brian's face onto his partner's. Brian glanced up at her, smiled weakly, and hugged Sharon to him, leaving her hands folded just below the vicious hole in her stomach. He laid her head carefully on the floor, closing her eyes.

When he looked up again, Scully saw that acceptance in his eyes that he had when he spoke of the death of his family--that cold rationalization that death was part of life that let him shut off the pain. She wanted to cry for him. "Brian, I--"

He silenced her with a look. Now was not the time. He stood up, grabbing both of her hands and pulling her up with him. "How's Mulder?"

She shook her head, still looking down at Sharon's body, laid out--waiting for the undertaker. "I don't know. Concussion at least. Eye wound. I thought Sharon would need..."

He smiled sadly. "She doesn't need anything now, Dana. But your partner needs you."

 

Brian knelt beside her, offering a handkerchief so she could clean away the blood. The bullet has grazed Mulder's brow bone, curving down along the contour of the bone. It was a messy, serious injury, but by the time they heard the sirens approaching, she was sure he wouldn't lose the eye. As she finished the cleaning, Mulder stirred, his eyelids fluttering.

"No, Mulder," she said quietly, running a hand soothingly over his hair. "Don't try to open your eyes. Just rest." He mumbled quietly and fell back into unconsciousness.

Scully sat back and allowed the paramedics who had just barreled down the stairs to attend to her partner. She stood up, feeling suddenly cold. Two agents shot, and still there were no answers. No connections that she could see, or at least make sense of.

She watched as Brian helped them load Sharon's body on a stretcher, his hands gently cradling her head. She felt a pang of guilt. Not that she might have been able to stop what was happening, but that her partner, though hurt, was still living. As much as Mulder might resent her, might dislike her, he  _was_  her partner.

They left the cars at the site, promised to make a full accounting to MacReady as soon as their partners were taken care of, and rode out in the ambulances. Mulder fidgeted enough that Scully finally felt the need to sedate him. She stayed with him until they could get him into an operating room. She stood outside for a few moments, until Brian found her. He was still crying, but his voice was strong and unclouded when he spoke. " 'S he gonna be okay?"

She nodded, responding to his unspoken plea for comfort with a fierce hug. "I'm sorry, Brian," she said quietly. He just let himself be held.

* * *

Mulder said exactly five words during his three day stay at Reno General: "What happened?" and "Where is she?"

Despite his concussion, despite the nausea and blurred vision it caused, he insisted on seeing Sharon's body. Scully didn't argue, but commandeered a wheelchair and took him down herself. He stood up, fighting the dizziness, and just stared at her body, pulling back the sheet, and squinting at her through the slit of light his swollen right eye allowed. He seemed not to even notice the huge patch that covered his ravaged left eye. After a moment he sat back down, still saying nothing.

"Mulder, are you all right?" Scully waited a moment, and, when he did not respond to her question, simply wheeled him back to his room.

* * *

Mulder's injury was severe enough to keep him in the hospital for the time required to close the case. The very fact that he did not bother to argue worried his already very worried partner. MacReady had taken Jane Price into custody, keeping a close eye on her. It was pitiful to see a woman so devoted to a man so cruel. She seemed to feel no guilt when questioned about the shooting. All she would say was that they had promised they would not hurt him, and they had lied. "When you lie, you get punished," she had stated, in a chilling way that proved she had felt that punishment numerous times.

 

Scully went out to the sanitarium where John Price was incarcerated, trying to find some answers. Price evinced no remorse when told of his father's death--not even satisfaction. She stuck a picture of one of the girls under his nose, trying to elicit some sort of response. He just looked at it a moment.

"What does the symbol mean, John?"

"Tole' that other guy that last time. Devil's image. Zeus's. Something." He kept his voice tough, intimidating.

"What does it have to do with your father, John?"

John's eyes glazed slightly. He refused to answer.

"He's dead now, John. He can't hurt you anymore. What does it mean?"

John seemed to speak from the bottom of a well, his voice and eyes distant, the tough guy deserted in favor of a small, scared boy. "In the jungles, people still talk to God. And God still talks back." His eyes focused on her, and the light in them was madness. "God doesn't talk to us anymore, not out here. He used to, but now that they're here, he doesn't. He ignores us." He sat forward now, gently rocking. "If we get rid of  _them,_  he'll talk to us again."

Scully leaned forward as well. "Who are  _they,_  John?"

"Them. They came from the bush. Dark hair. Girlish figures." His voice hardened, grew ten-year-old-defiant. "They looked like people, but Daddy said they were  _them._ "

Scully was silent for a moment, puzzling it out. Somehow, something that had happened to Del Price in Vietnam had stayed with him, staying vivid and passing to his son. "John," she asked quietly. "Why the cats?"

He looked up for a moment, not comprehending. Then he dropped his head. "Not girls," he said. "Couldn't kill girls, but God knew what I was saying. If I got enough of them, he would have talked to me. God would have talked to me like he talked to Daddy."

"Why didn't you tell the men this when they asked you about the cats?"

His eyes got big. "Daddy said  _they_  would come and get me, and take me away, and God would  _never_  talk to me then. Never, never, never, never." He started to cry, looking into her eyes with such pain that she felt a catch in her throat. "But God never talks to me anyway. He never talks to me, no matter what."

 

Scully met Brian back at their hotel, knocking quietly on his door. "What else did Mrs. Price have to say?" she asked.

Brian shrugged, some of his old vitality coming back. He was a very strong man, Scully thought, almost proudly. But he was denying what his partner's death meant to him, and that was going to destroy him--sooner or later. "Not much more. Apparently, her husband witnessed a ritual of some sort in Vietnam. Something about cleansing impurities in a village that had been burned. The symbol came from that."

Scully nodded, sitting close to him on the bed. "He told John the story. For John, it had a really religious bent, though. He seemed to think that black connoted some sort of pact with the Devil that Man had made. If he got rid of the blackness, his father said that God would come back to them. He imitated what his father told him, only he saw the cats as a suitable sacrifice. He was too young to think of people as sacrifices."

Brian sighed darkly. "His father wasn't."

Scully was silent for a time, just watching him. She suddenly wrapped an arm around his waist. "Are you okay?"

He smiled, patting her hand. "Yes, Dana, I really am." He kissed her forehead. "How's Mulder?"

She shook her head. "You're not going to change the subject, Brian. Sharon's dead. You have to deal with it."

He looked down at her sadly. "I am dealing with it, Dana. You're right. She is dead. She was also the best friend I ever had, more than a sister, a lover, a wife, a mother, a daughter." He smiled slightly. "I loved her more than anyone I've ever loved. I don't think I really even loved Mandy as much, not if I think about it." He kissed her again. "But death is just... death, you know? She's with God, and with my family." He hugged her gently, smiling as she leaned into her. "It's just another part of life, Dana. I learned to deal with it a long time ago. Even if it doesn't make the pain go away, that knowledge at least makes the joys sweet enough to help compensate."

Scully marveled at him. He could teach Mulder a few things about how to get on with life, she thought. Her partner was going crazy over this, ignoring everything, everyone. She was afraid he wasn't ever going to be able to deal with it. She wondered idly if this was what he was like when his sister disappeared, or if, finally, losing a lover was a bigger blow.

* * *

The flight home was quiet. Mulder managed to sleep most of the way, his injuries exhausting him more than he ever would have acknowledged, the grief hurting more than the bruises.

Scully sat next to him, Brian just across the aisle. She tried to tell herself that she sat by Mulder because he needed watching, the concussion severe enough to warrant monitoring. She knew, though, looking across at Brian, that that was not the real reason. Brian had been right: partnership was more important than love sometimes.

Besides, she thought as she and Brian chatted quietly across the aisle, the huge man was having problems of his own. It was hard to think in terms of a single person. He kept looking at the empty window seat next to him, as if expecting his partner to be there. He frowned at intervals when he found this was not the case.

 

The next weeks dragged on interminably. The funeral had been Hell; Sharon's parents had enfolded Brian like a long-lost son, while actively ignoring Mulder, who barely noticed anyway. Scully had had to drive him over, his left eye still bandaged, his right one hardly more usable. The silence was unbearable, but nothing she said could break him out of it.

Brian was back at work two days later, Mulder choosing to take time off--"to recuperate," he had said, though Scully hardly thought he would. He seemed bent on punishing himself. Two weeks after the funeral, he still had not returned. After three calls from Skinner in as many days, inquiring about her partner's condition, Scully determined to talk some sense to him. She left work early and headed for his apartment.

 

She stepped up to the door, trying to hear what was going on inside. There was no sound, but she was sure he was home. She knocked quietly.

Mulder came to the door quickly, almost wrenching it open. He had taken the bandage off of his eye, leaving it painfully visible, like a penance. His own private Scarlet Letter. "Hello," he said blandly.

She just looked up at him. His face was pale, the bruises on its right side fading, the stitches on the left almost macabre. His right eye was dead, his left hidden in swollen skin.

"You should keep that bandage on," she said quietly.

He just stared.

"Can I come in?" she tried again.

He gestured her inside.

"Skinner's asking for you. You were supposed to be back in the office last week."

"Well, I'm not."

"Yes," she snapped. "I can see that."

He walked over to the couch, sat, didn't bother to offer her a seat.

"So, when are you coming back?"

Silence.

"Mulder," she said quietly. "Why are you doing this? Do you think it's your fault?" Her anger flared suddenly. "Does  _everything_  in this world  _have_  to be your fault?"

He looked up sharply. "I..." he stopped. Saying that he thought it was his fault would be the easy way out. The truth was, he knew it wasn't his fault. He knew that no matter who had shot first, Sharon would still be dead. It wasn't that it was his fault, it was that he didn't think he could stand one more loss. Sam, Phoebe, Sharon... so many people had left him. Some came back, but only to leave again.

Now he had this partner. A real partner. She had saved his life, had covered for him with the bureau. She was another woman he could trust. Another one who could leave him. Unless he left first.

"Maybe I'm not coming back," he said, answering her earlier question.

Scully put her hands on her hips. If he thought she was just going to let him sit here and pity himself, even help him do it, he was very much mistaken. "Mulder, don't. You don't mean that. You're trying to lose yourself in the pity of it all. You loved her, yes. She even loved you back. But to sit here forever, staring at the walls is not going to accomplish anything."

Mulder hid behind his sarcasm. "I never accomplished anything anyway."

Scully turned toward the door. "You amaze me. You know," she said coldly, "Brian's back at work. Even breaking in a new partner.  _He_  knew it was time to move on." She turned on him suddenly, almost as if sensing his argument. "He loved her too, Mulder. She was his partner for a lot longer than she was your lover."

Mulder advanced in a rush, but Scully stood her ground. She simply was not going to let him let this destroy him. The death of a lover was hard. She knew that. It didn't mean you had to give up everything.

He stopped a pace in front of her, his hands flexed at his sides, as if ready to strike. "You have no idea, Scully. No idea what it's like."

"You're right. I have no idea. So what?" She stepped away. "Damn it, Mulder, this is stupid. I'm only trying to help." She turned back. "I'm your partner."

"No you're not," he spat, leaning over her, too close, grief-stricken cruelty springing into his eye. "You're just the bitch they sent to spy on me."

She slapped him. Hard. The comment was so uncalled-for, so vicious. She had saved his life for God's sake! Had watched over him in the hospital, had even stood up for him with their superiors. If that didn't make her trustworthy than he had no idea how to trust. She just stared at him, feeling no remorse as a hint of blood appeared in the corner of his mouth.

He stared back, his fists clenching at his sides, his tongue gently probing the area where he had bit his cheek. "Scully," he growled, trying to hold his hands at his sides, trying not to strike back. He finally turned away from her, his hands clenching and unclenching. "I think you'd better just leave now."

She stood her ground. She wasn't leaving him here to drop back into the sick depression he had chosen as his coping mechanism. She just stayed where she was, watching him as he brought his hands up to his face. She reached out finally, not quite touching his back. "Mulder..."

He turned slowly to face her, and she was amazed to see that he was crying. "I'm sorry," he said, his voice tiny.

"Oh, Mulder..." She pulled her hand back slowly.

"I'm sorry," he repeated, as if the words themselves had exhausted him. He stood before her, sobbing now. All of twelve. "Don't leave, Scully... Please don't leave."

"I won't," she promised. She took his arm, moving him to the couch, and got him to sit next to her. She sat there, watching his face, listening, as he told her everything.

 

He told her about New Year's Day, about how he and Sharon had stayed in the apartment--right here, in  _this_  apartment, on  _this_  couch--and watched the New Year's television shows, happier than they would ever have been going out. He told her about Valentine's Day, when they went for a drive in the mountains, and he had given her that choker; a token gift that meant the world. He told her about Lincoln in the snow; Sharon's baseball games, and how he hated them, but went to see  _her_  play; Sky's after work on Fridays; the first time he had met her parents and how they hated him.

Scully sat for hours with him, just sitting, listening. She didn't take the time to think about it then, but later, she could swear that he never once stopped crying. She would never have thought he had that many tears in him.

Finally, exhausted, he had let her lay him out on the couch, not bothering to move him to the bedroom, and cover him with a blanket. He fell asleep quickly, but it was a fitful sleep. She sat across from him, finally looking up at the clock, amazed to find that it was already six in the morning. She had been there more than twelve hours.

When he seemed to fall into a deeper sleep, she took the opportunity to rebandage his eye. He slept still enough that he didn't even notice.

She rose from her chore, stretched, and went into the kitchen. She dialed the phone sleepily. "Hi, Rose? It's Dana Scully. Yes, yes, I'm fine, thanks." Rose, the personnel officer in charge of sick calls, knew everything that went on in the FBI, it seemed. Obviously she would know about Mulder. He had called in more in the last month than anyone had a right to, but Rose also seemed fully aware of the situation Scully was in: having to help both a lover and a partner through the loss of the most important person in each one's life. "No, Brian's fine, I think. At least he's handling it... Yeah... Listen, I'm not feeling great," she lied, knowing Rose would see through it, but making the attempt, regardless. "I'll be in tomorrow, but I think I should stay out today." She smiled as Rose inquired whether Mulder would be out as well.

"Yes, Rose, he will. I'd have him call himself, but he's laid out on the  _couch._ " Rose laughed at the emphasis, and Scully returned the chuckle, glad to hear a little laughter.

* * *

She hadn't even realized she had fallen asleep, but she woke to the smell of coffee to find herself the one on the couch. She sat up, stretching carefully.

Mulder came in from the kitchen wearing a very sweaty jogging suit. "Good morning," he said tentatively, placing a mug of coffee before her.  _He's afraid of me,_  she realized suddenly.  _Is he afraid I'm still mad?_

She took the coffee, sipping gratefully at it. She looked him full in the face. He was red, the bruises on his face almost throbbing. "Mulder, how could you go jogging in your condition? Do you want to get yourself killed? You can't even see straight with that eye."

He smiled softly, the first smile she had seen from him in so long that she found herself smiling in return. "I needed to get out." He sat heavily in the chair across from her, sighing. "I also needed to apologies." The rest came out in a rush. "I'm sorry for what I said yesterday, Scully. I really  _do_  trust you." He smiled again, shyly. "I  _am_  glad you're my partner."

She shook her head. "I'm sorry, too. It's just that... Sharon  _was_  a special woman, but it's hardly fair to her--or anybody else--to just wallow." She looked him straight in the face. When he finally met her eyes, she knew he would be all right. "She deserved more. So do you."

They sat silently, just looking at each other, understanding. He shook himself. "I  _have_  to take a shower."

She rose, stretching comfortably. "I'll let myself out."

Mulder's face took on its old, sardonic cast. "You called Rose?"

She nodded.

"She told me to tell you not to spend too many nights here," he said, his eyes twinkling. "It'll corrupt you."

She smiled almost coyly. "I don't think she has a thing to worry about."

Mulder laughed as she walked out.

* * *

_The End_

 


End file.
